Fall Apart
by EndlessStars
Summary: Instead of immediately going to war, Morgarath takes a different approach to conquering Araluen. "Without you pesky, wretched Rangers around, this kingdom is as good as mine." Morgarath's eyes glinted coldly as he pointed his sword at one of the apprentice Rangers. "Now can one of you tell me where the Ranger Halt might be?" Will glared at him. He'd sooner sew his own lips shut. AU
1. Chapter 1: Missing

**A/N: It's been so long since I last wrote any fanfiction and even longer since I was in this particular fandom. But I was feeling nostalgic and was digging through my computer the other day, looking at my old works, when I found this thing. I only had the first scene (which you will see below) written and I never published it. After reading through it, I decided to just try and make a chapter out of it and this happened. It also helped that I'm currently rereading the Ranger's Apprentice series/ listening to the audiobooks just because it's one of my favorite series of all time (and I must say, it holds up pretty well), so it made the experience of writing this all the more enjoyable.**

 **I haven't really been writing much these couple of years because I've been so busy and decided to focus more on reading rather than writing, so pardon me if the writing seems really bad... I half expect that I've probably actually gotten a lot worse, lol. Still, I felt that I've read so many good stories, both original works and fanfiction alike, and I wanted to return the favor/give a similarly good experience to other people somehow and this seemed like a good place to start. This was one of the first fandoms I've ever been in, despite its small size, and this series holds a very special place in my heart, having helped me through some tough times. This, and considering the fact that I already have a chapter written and was planning on continuing the story on my own just for fun anyway, caused me to decide that I might as well publish this.**

 **I will say reviews are very effective motivators and I would really appreciate some, particularly ones sharing what you liked/disliked about this, along with some honest criticisms considering how hard it is to get that nowadays. Keeping in mind that part of this was written two years ago and another part written much more recently after my long, two year break from writing, I warn you that there might be an abrupt change in writing style/quality/tone, but I tried my best making it flow... and had a lot of fun, so hopefully you'll be able to enjoy if as much as I have! Also, an important note, this will stray FAR from the canon. MUCH more supernatural stuff, some changes to settings and events and situation, etc. In other words, a VERY AU story. I didn't make any big changes to any characters of the basic premise of the story other than make Morgarath a much more powerful and intimidating villain though (I felt he was a touch anticlimactic and too easily taken down in the canon).**

 **This takes place soon after the first book and is an AU from here on out. Also, since there's a lot with Rangers in this fic, it was necessary to create a couple of OCs as well as make up a couple of Rangers names to be mentioned. None of them are going to be a major part of this story however.**

 **Now, without further ado, let the story begin! (Man I miss saying that!)**

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 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything (FANfiction... duh)**

Chapter 1: Missing

" _What's wrong, Halt?" Everything. Everything was wrong. His world was crumbling away before his very eyes and the floor was disappearing from beneath him. "Cat got your tongue?" It was more like a cold fist was strangling his heart, which had momentarily forgotten its function._

 _Morgarath's cold, delighted expression told him that his face revealed way more of the chaos tearing through his mind than he wanted it to, but he found himself rather apathetic to that fact. At the moment, all he could really bring himself to care about was the horrifying scene before him. Morgarath sat upon the King's throne with a disturbingly ecstatic smile stretching across his thin, ghastly face, and was surrounded by Wargals who stood on a floor littered by the corpses of dead royal guards. He barely took notice of any of these details however. Instead, nearly all of his attention was focused on the chain that Morgarath was casually twirling about, with what seemed suspiciously like a Bronze Oakleaf attached at the end._

That's not… _He tried denying it, but deep down, he knew exactly what Morgarath had in his hands. It was the Oakleaf of an apprentice Ranger._ But that Oakleaf could belong to anyone. _After all, there were several missing apprentices and it was possible that the vindictive psychopath had just found the Oakleaf and was trying to scare him with it. These speculations, however, didn't last very long._

" _You seem awfully interested in this thing." Morgarath drawled as he finally stopped twirling the Oakleaf around to dangle it before him for Halt to see. Halt had no apparent outward reaction to the question, but he felt as if he had just swallowed a stone which had consequently fallen to the pit of his stomach. As if sensing his dread, Morgarath smiled widely. "I bet you're wondering whose this was."_

Was. _There was little doubt left in Halt's mind that Morgarath knew exactly who that Oakleaf had belonged to and what connection said owner had with him. His face twisted into a murderous glare as he drowned himself in his fury to keep his panic in check._

" _What have you done with him, Morgarath?" He breathed, the pressure on his chest too heavy for him to speak any louder._ "What have you done with my apprentice?"

* * *

 _Four months earlier…_

It had been about half a year since the "Kalkara Incident" and Morgarath had been strangely silent. There had been no sitings of Wargals, no raids, no signs of upcoming attacks, nor any news about Morgarath or any of his followers. In fact, according to most recent reports, there had been absolutely no activity within the Mountains of Rain and Night for months now. So far, it seemed that the uneasy peace between Araluen and Morgarath would continue, and the people were starting to relax as things seemed to return to "normal". To Halt however, this was exactly what he considered to be the most unsettling thing Morgarath could've done- nothing. It meant that he was planning, scheming, _preparing_ for something.

Crowley clearly seemed to share his concerns as he had called together an emergency Gathering. In his message to Halt, the Commandant had even seemed to imply that he was considering sending a group of Rangers on an undoubtedly risky and perilous mission near or even _to_ the Mountains of Rain and Night to gather some more intelligence on what exactly Morgarath was up to.

Halt suspected that he was a likely candidate for such a mission, but he had some reservations about that fact. It wasn't that he was fearful or even that he didn't want to go- and if Crowley were to select him, he would indeed go without hesitation- but he felt some slight concern about Will. There was absolutely no way he would dare to bring his apprentice along on such a dangerous mission, but at the same time, with a possibly approaching war and the threat of attacks from Morgarath, he wasn't sure if he felt at ease with leaving the boy at Redmont on his own. He was only a few months into his second year as an apprentice after all, so he was hardly fit to play the role of a fully fledged Ranger in Halt's absence and they wouldn't have any Rangers to spare to substitute for Halt in the meantime either. This meant that Redmont would already be a bit more vulnerable as it was. Will also needed to continue his training so that if a war were to suddenly begin, he would be ready, but there would be no Rangers available to mentor him should Halt have to go on a mission.

He sighed heavily. _Apprentices._ Sometimes, they seemed to be more trouble than they were worth. Speaking of Will, his usually chatty apprentice had been oddly subdued and quiet during their entire journey to the Gathering Grounds. Halt was well aware as to why this was, but still found the silence rather strange.

The boy was clearly also concerned about Morgarath's recent actions, or rather lack thereof, and the wild horror stories that he'd grown up listening to probably didn't do much to ease those fears. The fact that they were currently on their way to an emergency Gathering likely further alarmed him as well. Hopefully, once they actually got to the Gathering Grounds, Will would be able to get his mind off of such troubling thoughts, for such things were hardly worries that should concern an apprentice.

"Are we almost there yet?" Halt glanced back at Will at the question. On any other day, this would've been a typical inquiry from the boy, another way that he often filled the silence whenever he got bored or restless. Today however, the question seemed a lot more strained. Halt could also see the young man's brows scrunched together as his eyes shifted around nervously.

"We've been here before. I'm sure you could judge for yourself the answer to that question." He said lightly, pretending that nothing was amiss.

"Oh." Will said quietly in response, before silence descended upon them once more. He continued looking around nervously as inconspicuously as he could, but he wasn't doing a particularly good job of it. After a few minutes, Halt, deciding that enough was enough, finally spoke up.

"Is there any particular reason why you're looking at those bushes as if they're about to jump out and eat us?" Will's nervously shifting eyes focused on Halt at his words.

"You noticed? Am I really that obvious?" The apprentice asked, managing a weak, lopsided grin.

"You couldn't look more suspicious and nervous if your tried." Halt informed him in a deadpan. "Now spit it out. What're you looking around for?" Will's flimsy attempt at a smile gave way to a worried frown as he shrugged uncertainly.

"I don't really know." He said. "I just have this feeling that something's off, but I don't know what it is. It almost feels like there's somebody watching or stalking us. I know there isn't, but still. And yet at the same time, it also feels like things are _too_ quiet and _too_ empty. I'm not sure why, but I just feel like I should be keeping an eye out for something. I'm probably not making much sense right now, am I?" Will laughed to try and cover up his nervous, choppy sentences.

"Indeed you're not." Halt said after a brief pause as he seriously considered his apprentice's words. "But I think I understand what you're saying. Something does seem… _different_ around here. It's probably because this is an emergency Gathering, however. Nothing to be worried about." Will seemed somewhat reassured at his words, but not completely convinced.

"But why's everything so quiet, Halt?" The Ranger frowned at that.

"What do you mean by quiet?"

"Well, I can't hear _anything_." Will said, his voice rising in pitch slightly. "A forest isn't supposed to be this silent. There's supposed to be the sound of the winds rustling leaves, animals, or at least _some_ form of movement. But all I can hear is us." As he spoke, his eyes nervously scanned their surroundings once more. Slowly, Halt nodded in agreement.

"It _is_ unusually still and quiet out today." He said carefully. "However, that isn't anything to be alarmed about. After all, it's hardly an indication of danger. And if there really were anything lurking about, Tug and Abelard would warn us long before it ever got near. It's probably just a combination of the weather, your nerves, and your imagination."

"I guess you're right." Will said, clearly not believing his words even as he said them. Halt mentally shrugged. There was only so much he could do to reassure the boy. Perhaps when they actually got to the Gathering, his apprentice would finally feel better. If he were to be honest, he too had noticed and felt similar things as Will had just described throughout the day. He had decided that it was all a result of his own concerns heightening his senses and intensifying some deeply hidden paranoia that he would never admit to having.

Still, his past experience told him that he shouldn't completely disregard his feelings, as the sixth sense was not something to be completely ignored. Indeed, it had actually saved his life several times in the past. In the end, he resolved to be more cautious than usual and be prepared for any trouble lurking about, but in a subtler manner than his apprentice. Perhaps it was for the best for Will to be a little worried and more alert than usual.

They were getting closer to the Gathering Grounds now. Usually, the familiarity of the area helped alleviate any unreasonable fears he had as his mind began to shift its focus onto his work and his fellow Rangers, pulling it away from any imagined worries. Today, it only intensified the heavy, churning feeling in his gut.

Just behind him, Will's eyes had begun shifting around again, perhaps less frantically than before, but not any less nervous.

The Gathering Grounds seemed a lot emptier than Halt had anticipated. They weren't particularly early, after all. In fact, he'd thought that they'd be among the last to get to the Gathering since the message from Crowley had been mysteriously delayed, causing them to set out a day later than they should have. And yet from what Halt could see, less than half the Rangers of the kingdom seemed to be present.

"Where is everybody?" Will asked from behind him as they slowly rode closer to the small cluster of twenty or so tents scattered around the Gathering Grounds. "I thought you said we were going to be late?" Halt, in a rare instance, found that he had no answers to the question. He could think of very few possibilities as to why over half the kingdom's Rangers would be absent for an e _mergency Gathering_ of all things. And of the few plausible explanations he _could_ think of, none of them were good news.

"Go set up camp." He told his apprentice grimly. "I'll go try to find out what's going on." Wordlessly, Will nodded slowly before he rode off to do what his mentor had instructed him to. Halt on the other hand, hesitated for a moment, feeling an uncomfortable moment of déjà vu as he looked after his apprentice and then towards the command tent. So far, this Gathering was shaping up to be disturbingly similar to the last one, which had ended up leading them into a confrontation with a couple of Kalkaras. Just like last time, something was obviously very, _very_ wrong, indicated by both the absence of so many Rangers and the ominous feeling swirling around in Halt's gut.

He pushed the disturbing thoughts to the back of his mind however, as he determinedly rode to the command tent. When he reached the pavilion, he dismounted from Abelard and could make out the sound of hushed voices speaking from behind the curtains of the tent. The other Rangers didn't seem to have even noticed his approach judging by the lack of a pause in whatever conversation they were having. Halt's frown deepened. Whatever was going on, it must be serious.

Drawing back the curtains, the Ranger entered the pavilion. Crowley, facing the entrance of the tent from where he sat at the large table at the center, was the first to notice him.

"Halt?" He exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise. "You're here!" There were three other senior Rangers present, all of whom looked equally shocked as they turned to face him. They all rose from where they sat around the table as Crowley gestured for him to sit with them. "We were worried that you wouldn't be able to make it." The commandant said, looking strangely relieved as Halt pulled up a chair to the unusually empty table. "What took you so long?"

"Your message was delayed and we ended up leaving a day later than we should have." Halt explained briefly. "What about the rest of the Corps? There's only around twenty Rangers here by the looks of it. Did something happen?"

One of the senior Rangers sighed heavily. "To be honest, we're not entirely sure ourselves what's going on. We were trying to figure it out ourselves just now." The other Rangers nodded in confirmation.

"How many Rangers _are_ here right now?" Halt asked, barely managing to hide his surprise. It was very rare for a Ranger to admit to not knowing something, let alone a group of senior Rangers.

"Well, counting you and Will, twenty-three." Crowley said wearily, massaging the bridge of his nose. Then he stiffened and looked to Halt apprehensively. "Your apprentice _is_ here with you, isn't he?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't he be?" Halt responded with a frown. Crowley relaxed a bit, waving the question away.

"I was worried he'd been caught up in all… _this_. Whatever's going on here. I'll admit, had expected some of us to be _missing,_ but not quite so many. This is shaping up to be a state of emergency for the Corps at this rate… Speaking of which, I suppose it's about time that I explain the purpose of this Gathering." He said. Halt leaned forward slightly, listening intently. The three other senior Rangers looked at each other, having seemingly forgotten about that topic due to the unexpected absence so many members of their corps. Crowley, taking a deep breath, began to explain. "It all began shortly after the last Gathering, when some... disturbing things started happening. In fact, it started almost immediately after that Gathering, when Ranger Andross had allegedly seemed to disappear into thin air and was reported to never have returned to his fief." All of the Rangers at the table frowned, unable to conceal their unease at his words.

"You mean to tell us he's gone missing?" One of the Rangers asked, slightly disbelievingly. "How? Why's this the first we've heard of this?"

"I'm getting to that." Crowley said, gesturing for them all to settle down and listen. "I myself didn't get this news until two weeks after it happened. Apparently, the Baron of his fief had been under the impression that he was on a mission and it took him a bit to notice that something was off. Of course, when I finally _did_ get the report, I immediately reached out to the Ranger of the nearest fief to Andross's to get him to investigate. After a full week of investigation, the Ranger, Ryan Wagoner, reported that he had found nothing. It was as if Andross had gone missing without a trace. All he had managed to find were vague reports of a man in what could possibly be a Ranger's cloak stumbling around the edges of the forest in his fief. I then waited for about a month for another report. The report never came." Halt frowned darkly at his tone and word choice.

"You mean to say…"

"That Ranger Ryan had also gone missing." Crowley confirmed grimly. "A couple days later, the Baron of Lodren Fief reported that nobody had seen Ranger Jordan or his apprentice for an entire week. At that point, I tried to send out the news of all this, as there was obviously a serious problem. But apparently, they all failed to reach any of the Rangers due a mysterious fire in the messenger room that burned down all the letters. Additionally, the day after, an apprentice of one of the Bird Keepers allegedly accidentally released most of the entire flock of messenger birds. The entire Postal Unit in Castle Araluen was in a state of chaos during the next few days as they tried to sort everything out."

"I remember hearing something about that." One of the Rangers said, frowning skeptically. "I had thought that it was unfortunate… Perhaps a little _too_ unfortunate by the sounds of it now." Crowley nodded.

"That's exactly what I thought." He said. "So, I brought it up with the King and some of the other retired Rangers, and they all agreed. We then started to suspect there to be several traitors within the Castle itself. Investigations followed but we couldn't find any solid suspects or leads. In the end, it was decided that until we figured out who was trying to sabotage the Castle, we'd be careful with sensitive information, including the news of the missing Rangers. The King had been worried that such news and news of what was going on at Castle Araluen would cause panic, so we tried to keep such information from spreading too much. For the next few months, a few other Rangers went missing as well. Four to be exact, including another apprentice. About a month ago, I had sent a group of three rather experienced Rangers to investigate. They too, never returned or even reported. If you're keeping count, that's ten Rangers who have gone missing" A grim, shocked silence fell upon the room at that.

"And after all that, we still have no idea what's happened to them?" Halt eventually asked, breaking the tense bubble of silence. Crowley nodded.

"That's why I finally decided to call together a Gathering. I wanted to tell warn every remaining member of the Corps about whatever is going on in a secure place and to… _take a headcount_ and make sure we weren't missing anybody else. As you can see, this was a lot worse than I had suspected. I was hoping that perhaps some Rangers were delayed and decided to wait another day to see if anybody would show up later. So far, it's only been you and Will. Considering that its rather late in the evening at this point, I'm starting to think that you two are going to be the last ones who _will_ show up."

"Well now that we're all here and you've done your 'headcount', what exactly is the plan of action?" One of the senior Rangers asked. "With a war possibly coming up, this is hardly the ideal time for over half of the Rangers in the entire Corps to go missing nor is it a time for whoever of us are left to go searching for all of them." Crowley sighed heavily.

"I was thinking we can all put our heads together and try to make sense of the situation first. I've already started going over the list of missing Rangers so far to try and figure out a possible motivation or pattern to all this." He took out a piece of paper, presumably the said list of Rangers. "So far, I've noticed that a majority of the missing Rangers are the less experience ones. Additionally, almost all of the apprentices, with the exception of the now three present here now, have gone missing along with their mentors. About a quarter of the more experienced Rangers are also gone."

"And what do you think this means?" Halt asked, suspecting that Crowley had already reached the same conclusion as he had.

"Someone's been specifically targeting Rangers." The commandant said, his eyes dark with anger. "They've started off by picking off the potentially easier targets. And whatever or whoever they are, they've been rather successful by the looks of it."

* * *

Will wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do after setting up camp. After all, he still wasn't entirely clear on how a Gathering worked, with his only other Gathering experience having been cut short as soon as he'd arrived. He figured his mentor would probably be busy for a while in the command tent with the other senior Rangers. This, in addition to the fact that he couldn't see any other Rangers milling about, eventually led him to sit on the exact same log that he and Gilan had been sitting on during the last Gathering. This time, however, he was alone.

 _Where is Gilan anyway?_ Will wondered, his eyes scanning over the many tents surrounding him. _Hopefully he's here…_ As if on cue, Will's eyes were soon drawn to a figure that seemed to suddenly have materialized from the ground at the edge of the Gathering. There was only one person in the Corps that he knew who could move like that. Will stood and quickly went over to the figure at almost a run.

"Gilan!" He called excitedly as he approached. Gilan turned to him and nearly dropped the bundle of firewood he'd been carrying in shock.

"Will?" He responded as he himself stumbled forward to meet the apprentice. "You're here! I was starting to get worried that you guys wouldn't make it!" Then he looked around, with some concern. "Where's Halt? You didn't come here alone, did you?"

Will frowned at that. "Of course not. He's just at the command tent. Why would you think that?" Gilan sighed in relief.

"Well, you've noticed the… vacancy here, haven't you? The senior Rangers haven't said anything about it, but we all know that something's wrong. An even-worse-than-we-were-dreading kind of wrong. I had been worried that something had happened to you guys." Will nodded solemnly.

"So _nobody_ knows what's going on here, then?" He asked nervously, his eyes glancing around their surroundings for perhaps the hundredth time that day. The chill that he'd been feeling all afternoon seemed to be getting worse.

"I don't think so." Gilan answered uncertainly as they both walked back towards where they had set up their campsites. "But I think I might have an idea."

"What is it?" Will asked curiously when the other Ranger didn't elaborate. Gilan seemed unsure of whether or not he should tell the younger Ranger before eventually sighing.

"I'm not even sure if any of this is true." He said wearily. "At the time, I'd thought that they'd only been rumors, but the situation's changed now. For the past few weeks, I've heard whispers that the Rangers of some of the fiefs neighboring my own had gone missing. Vanished into thin air without a trace, they say."

" _Rangers_? As in more than one?" Will asked, disbelief evident in his voice. Gilan nodded.

"Yeah. I didn't believe it at first either. After all, what could make even a single Ranger, go missing, let alone two at around the same time? Additionally, that would be the type of thing that Crowley would report to everyone about. But judging by the look of things, I'm thinking there might be a kernel of truth in those rumors."

"Oh." Will said, unsure what to make of Gilan's theory. Then a rather frightening thought occurred to him. "You don't think _all_ the Rangers not here have gone missing, do you?" Gilan grimaced at that.

"We better hope not. With the rising threat of Morgarath, losing over half of our Rangers now would be a disaster on a scale that the Corps and this kingdom hasn't faced in a long while." He said grimly. Will felt all the blood drain from his face. Seeing this Gilan's face lightened up slightly. "No need to look so worried, Will. At this point in time, this is all just speculation. Besides, the Ranger Corps has gotten through some tough times before. Us Rangers and this kingdom aren't going down that easily."

The chill that was hanging in the air seemed to be getting worse, but Will took a deep breath and managed to relax a bit as he nodded. "Right, of course." He said with as much conviction as he could muster. A few moments later, his stomach started growling. Gilan looked amused.

"Sunset's just around the corner. I suppose it's about time for supper. How about you go fetch us some water and I'll start setting up a fire?" Will nodded and as they got to their campsite, he grabbed a couple of buckets and went to the stream that ran through the Gathering Grounds.

About an hour later, the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon. Will and Gilan sat around a small fire, waiting for the water in a pot to start boiling. Every once in a while, they would both glance at the command tent, which Halt had yet to come out from.

"I wonder what they're discussing in there." Will said, yawning. "It's been a while." Gilan shrugged.

"Probably dreadfully dull senior Ranger business." He said cheerfully. Then he looked around. "I see some of the other Rangers have returned." Will following his line of sight managed to make out four dark, vague figures in the distance.

It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn't really met any other Rangers other than Halt, Gilan, and Merron from the previous Gathering.

"Do you know any of them?" He asked Gilan, pointing in the general direction of the dark figures. Gilan looked at him with slight confusion.

"Of course I do. Most members of the Corps know each other. Didn't Halt tell you that?" Will nodded, slightly embarrassed.

"I think I remember him saying something about that now that you mention it." He said. "I guess I'm just not quite used to the idea of so many people just _knowing_ each other like that." Gilan grinned.

"Well, I'm sure you'll get used to it soon. How about I introduce you to those four?" Will managed a smile himself.

"Sure. It's not like we're doing anything much right now."

"That's the spirit!" Gilan said, laughing as he stood up. "Come on, let's go then."

Despite the rapidly fading daylight, the chill in the air became easier to ignore as Will followed his friend to the group of other Rangers.

But whether he liked it or not, the coldness and dread remained there still, even if pushed to the back of his mind. And somewhere deep inside, he felt his apprehension rise as they got closer and closer to group before them.

He wasn't sure how he knew, but something was... off. Missing.

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 **A/N: And that's the end of that! It feels sooooo good to publish something (anything) again. I've been silently lurking around a variety of fandoms for so long and now I'm finally contributing something! Now, onto the thing that everybody's wondering/worrying about... updates. I _would_ promise to get this done but if you do some stalking on me (idk why you would, I'm pretty boring and haven't done much) you'll find that I'm not good keeping such promises, considering the four two-year-old fanfics currently in an uncertain status sitting around under my profile atm. I will say I really _WANT_ to finish this and feel like I could. I'm having a lot of fun reaching back into my roots and finally trying to write with these characters after so long. I've also already started on the next chapter and I'm about to get a lot more free time with summer on its way. The next update, based on these observations, lead me to give you an estimation of around two weeks (hopefully less?) for the next chapter and either weekly/biweekly updates thereafter. I'm really hopeful about finishing this one, so stay tuned (and maybe have some patience?)**

 **Remember to leave a review! They always make my day and help motivate my lazy butt into continuing to write. Criticism of any sort is strongly encouraged and very appreciated. Until our paths cross again, I, EndlessStars, bid you farewell!**


	2. Chapter 2: Strange Faces

**A/N: Okay, this is a LONG chapter, so I won't waste too much time. Some quick notes: In this chapter I'm going to be introducing a few very important elements of the story. First, you'll catch a glimpse of the supernatural/magical elements that I have added to this story/AU. This includes, strange creatures and the use of magic from them. Secondly, I have introduced a total of four OCs in this chapter. I'm not the biggest fan of OCs in fanfic so trust me when I say each of them are very necessary and have been included for a very good reason. I couldn't find any canon characters that could fit into their roles since I had assigned most major characters a role already. Also, in the books, there is no mention of any other apprentice Rangers around Will's age, which is a very important role in this story (which also requires more than one apprentice Ranger). I also tried to make the OCs at least a bit interesting, but either way, they aren't major characters so I hope you don't mind too much /**

 **This chapter was a hard one to write. I'm honestly still not happy with it completely, but I need to leave it alone eventually, so I decided to stop myself while I was still ahead. Also, fun fact, this is the longest chapter for any fanfic I've ever written. It was a great learning experience and fun to write though, and I hope it's fun to read as well. ALSO, IMPORTANT NOTE: the first scene in this chapter comes again from the future but will NOT be officially connected/revisited later on. Instead, it shares some certain elements and I think it's a fun way to start this chapter and kinda serves as a nice parallel.**

 **To everyone who reviewed/followed/favorited, THANK YOU. I was paranoid that nobody would be interested in this story, so it's nice to know that there's at least somebody out there reading other than me :) I'll be responding to reviews at the end of this chapter.**

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 **Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.**

Chapter 2: Strange Faces

 _The Ranger felt his legs shaking as he stumbled onwards. He wasn't sure where exactly he was heading or what he was going to do whenever he got to wherever he got to, but he_ did _know that he needed to get away from here. It was_ all _he knew now._

 _His hands, slippery with blood, struggled to grip at various tree trunks as he continued walking. Currently, he was making his way up what felt like a very large slope which seemed to be getting steeper and steeper as he got closer to the top. He could feel his strength draining away with every step and by the time he finally got to the top of the slope, he was almost completely spent. He fell to his knees and leaned heavily against a nearby tree._

 _Despite the nearly endless forest he was in, his current position gave him a pretty good view of where he was. Looking up into the distance, he saw that he appeared to be at the peak of a relatively small mountain within a very long mountain range, so extensive that he couldn't see the end of it in any given direction. Unlike his current location, the valley below was dry, gray, and bare. He could see enormous clouds of dirt and dust skimming its surface, driven by powerful winds. Judging by the color of the sky, previously covered more or less by the canopy of the forest, he could also tell that the sun was currently setting, with the night quickly approaching._

 _Somewhere deep in the depths of his mind, he felt a flash of confusion. Although he couldn't really remember much right now, he knew that he must be far from home. Wherever his home had been, he was certain that it didn't have mountains like this. Doubt crept into his mind like a poison as he wondered how exactly he was ever going to make his way out of this mountain range, let alone find his way to where he needed to be. In the end, he decided to take things one step at a time. Northwest. That was the direction he should be going._

 _On the night right before his miraculous escape, that was one of the few things the frail, tattered remains of his mind had managed to remember as he had stared up at the stars, which always seemed to be too bright nowadays. Now, as night fell, the grim stare of those stars returned, seeming to cast a spotlight on him. He felt like he was being watched._

 _No, that was crazy talk. The exhaustion of his travels must be catching up with him. Maybe he should simply stay here and rest for the night. He needed to save his strength for tomorrow anyway, so that he could continue stumbling his way home._

 _Northwest. He just needed to keep going northwest._

 _He was in the process of nodding off when something woke him up. It was a sound, so quiet that he sensed it more than he heard it. It would be all too easy to ignore, but out of all of the other Rangers that had been captured with him, he had been the only one to escape for a very good reason. Forcing his heavy eyes to open wide, he looked around into the darkness of the forest surrounding him. For a few minutes, he saw nothing. Then, a dark shape, slowly detaching itself from the shadows, could be seen coming towards him. It was so calm and something about it was so familiar, that he didn't feel any panic at all and allowed it to reach him._

 _When it was only a few meters away, he finally recognized the shape to be that of another Ranger. He was an apprentice Ranger, judging by his apparent young age, although he was missing his Bronze Oakleaf. Suddenly, he felt very tired, but also very relieved. He tried to croak out a greeting, but the words ended up getting strangled as they tried to make their way out of his parched throat._

 _The apprentice, now only a meter away from him, knelt down before him. The boy's eyes were covered by the cowl of his cloak. The Ranger frowned at that observation, wondering how the boy seemed to be in such a better shape than he was in. After all, he had lost his cloak as soon as he had woken up in this nightmare. These thoughts however, soon evaporated into whatever void half of his sanity had been sucked into as the apprentice then spoke up in a low, strangely hollow voice that sounded altogether too friendly for some reason._

" _Halt? Are you Halt?"_ Halt. _The name was a familiar one, not because he remembered whoever this "Halt" person was, but because that was the name that had been repeated to him throughout his interrogations this past week. He wasn't sure why his captors had been so fixated on this "Halt" but he knew that even if that name did ring a bell, he wouldn't tell. "Halt" he felt, had been an ally once, before his time here, and he would never betray a comrade._

 _He shook his head slowly, wondering why this apprentice was now asking about "Halt" as well. The boy tilted his head and he managed to croak out, "No. Not me." The apprentice frowned at that._

" _Are you Crowley?" Again, he shook his head. "Gilan?" The young voice seemed to be getting icier and icier with every passing second. He distantly wondered_ why _. "How about_ Will _?" That final name was spat out with particular resentment and yet the Ranger still didn't recognize the name. He shook his head once more, frowning now._

 _Slowly, he was starting to get the sense that something was_ off _here. He could practically feel the waves of anger and frustration radiating from the apprentice. Why was he so angry? And why was he asking such strange questions?_

" _Do you know where any of them are?" The boy asked impatiently, any pretense of friendliness now gone. Instead of answering, he squinted at the apprentice, trying to get a better look at his face to figure out why he was asking these questions. A gentle wind blew past them at that very moment, pulling the apprentice's hood back enough for him to see the boy's eyes. His breath caught in his throat as, to his horror, he saw that the eyes were completely pitch black. And in that moment, he knew that he was never getting home._

 _Had he any tears left to cry, his eyes would've welled up then. But dehydrated as he was, he couldn't even do that. Looking into the void of those soulless eyes, he said defiantly, through gritted teeth, "_ No _." The next thing he knew, something seized his heart and he gasped for breath._

 _A few minutes later, he was dead._

 _The "apprentice Ranger" stood up, his black eyes glaring down at the man. It would appear that his search would continue._

 _He was about to leave when suddenly, he seemed to remember something. Turning around, he knelt down next to the man once more and took out a knife. It was a rusty old weapon, clearly not the knife of any true Ranger. Still, the blade was sharp and as he dragged it across the dead Ranger's arm, it broke skin as blood started trickling out._

 _The boy, or rather the creature in the disguise of a boy, licked off the blood on the knife until it was clean once more. A few moments later, his current form wavered and twisted until he no longer looked like a boy, but rather the man that he had just killed. The creature grinned to itself._

 _It was always good to add another form to his ever growing collection._

* * *

 _Three months earlier…_

Gilan and his fellow Ranger, a man by the name of Peter Madison, scanned the trees for any signs of one of the four apprentices lurking about, trying to sneak up on them.

The group that Will and Gilan had met up with had consisted of one Ranger and three apprentices, who had been on their way to practicing their skills in unseen movement while they were all still waiting for the senior Rangers to make an announcement explaining the current situation. With nothing better to do, Will and Gilan had offered to join their practice and before they knew it, they'd found themselves a little ways into the forest surrounding the Gathering Grounds.

"Will, I can see you hiding there next to that tree." Gilan now called out casually, not even bothering to turn his head towards the direction of the apprentice's hiding spot. Somewhere to his right, he heard a frustrated sigh.

"But _how_?" Will asked in almost a whine. Gilan grinned.

"Well, as the _best_ and _most skilled_ Ranger in the art of unseen movement, I also happen to be an expert in _spotting_ movement." He said with exaggerated arrogance. The apprentice scoffed at that.

"Oh, shut up." He grumbled, stepping out from his spot next to the tree. Gilan smirked.

"Now, Will, is that any way for an apprentice to speak to a fully fledged Ranger?" He laughed as the boy scowled at him. "Alright, alright. No need to look so glum. Your face might end up stuck like that and Halt would of course blame me completely. What gave you away was your choice of position. By standing directly next to a tree like that, the green of your cloak stands out a lot more, especially when the wind blows your cloak in the wrong direction and makes some of it cover part of tree. You're kind of hard to miss when that happens."

"What should I do to avoid this problem then?" Will asked as he walked over to Gilan.

"It's as simple as not standing next to a tree like that." The Ranger explained. "You were practically leaning on that tree, which is especially problematic considering how close you were to us, your supposed targets. You should've kept yourself detached and part of the background instead, so that you wouldn't be near any object of greater focus like that tree. After all, part of the effectiveness of our cloaks comes from the fact that it helps us blend into backgrounds. Remember that and use that knowledge. That and of course, you should…" Will sighed and nodded.

"I know, I know. _Practice_." He said resignedly. Gilan smiled widely in satisfaction. Then suddenly, he felt the stare of the other Ranger, Peter, next to him. He turned to the other man.

"What?" He asked, feeling oddly defensive. "Why are you looking at me like that?" The other Ranger simply shook his head.

"I'm just shocked. Against all odds, you can actually be a pretty effective instructor when you bother trying." Peter stated, his voice completely flat and serious. Will stifled a laugh as it was Gilan's turn to scowl.

"Thanks," He said sarcastically. "That almost sounded like a compliment." Peter's mouth twitched upwards in what might've been a smile, before he turned and pointed in a seemingly random direction.

"You two, over there. I can see you. Try moving a bit slower next time. Your quick movements forward gave you away." Two disappointed groans could be heard. As Will squinted at the spot the Ranger had pointed at, he noticed two small, cloaked figures standing about fifteen meters away, seeming to shimmer in and out of sight under the camouflage of the forest. They came forward after a few seconds to join Will and the two older Rangers.

"This is all your fault." One of the apprentice Rangers growled, glaring at the other. "You just _had_ to go the same way I was going. If you hadn't been next to me, I wouldn't have moved when you did." Peter frowned at the boy at that.

"Your mistakes are nobody's fault but your own." He said disapprovingly. "If the mere presence of a fellow Ranger can make you reveal yourself, then that in it of itself is a problem. After all, once you earn your Silver Oakleaf, you'll find yourself having to work with other Rangers on actual missions. And as my apprentice, I also expect you to have more respect for other Rangers than what you've just demonstrated." The apprentice scowled at the words, but wisely didn't say anything more.

"Look on the bright side, Hen," The other apprentice said cheerfully, apparently not minding his companion's attitude. "We both got pretty close to them this time."

"Alex, that might be the stupidest thing you've said all day. First of all, I told you not to call me Hen. The name's _Henrik_." The grouchy apprentice snapped. "Secondly, in case it escaped your notice, the _first year_ got closer than we did." Will wasn't sure whether he should take that comment as a compliment or an insult.

"Alright, that's enough, both of you." Gilan interrupted, before the other apprentice, Alex, could reply. "Let's at least _try_ to get along here. After all, you're both members of the Corps and a major key to our success is _cooperation_ and _unity_. Got it?" Both apprentices nodded in understanding, but Henrik still practically had a storm cloud hanging over his head while Alex either didn't care about or notice the other's mood. Gilan narrowed his eyes at the pair suspiciously before sighing and shaking head. He then looked around at their quickly darkening surroundings. "I think that's enough practice for today. It's getting pretty dark now." He said wearily.

Peter nodded in agreement. "The senior Rangers also might be ready to share some news with us tonight at the feast and we wouldn't want to miss that." He then looked around the woods as well, as if searching for something. "Where is that last apprentice? What was his name again?"

"Runar Bardenson," Gilan provided. "I must say, he's pretty good. I haven't seen a shadow of him during the practice. We should probably get him to come out now though." With that said Gilan took a deep breath before calling out into the woods. "Runar, practice is over! You can come out now! We're about to head back to the Gathering Grounds!" The group waited for a moment in silence. After a solid minute, it became clear that they weren't going to get a response. Gilan frowned and called again. Still, nothing.

Will was was also frowning now, as he felt the strange dread he'd almost managed to forget returning to the forefront of his mind once more. He knew that danger so close to the Gathering Grounds was next to impossible, for its location was jealously guarded secret. Still, he suddenly felt very tense.

 _Calm down, Will. Runar's probably just trying to pull our legs or something._ He told himself as his eyes scanned his surroundings like they had earlier that day. Admittedly, Runar had seemed much too serious to do a practical joke like this when they'd initially met earlier that afternoon, but there was every chance that Will had misjudged him on that account. In fact, thinking over their current situation, a prank was actually the most likely explanation for the lack of response they were getting. Somehow, that did little to make Will feel any better.

"Runar? Did you hear us? It's time to go!" Alex called out, and soon the rest of the group joined in. For a few minutes, they were all calling and searching, until it eventually became abundantly obvious that there was nobody out there to hear or answer their calls in the first place.

"Where on Earth is that apprentice?" Peter asked to no one in particular, frowning darkly.

"Perhaps he went hiding so far away that he couldn't hear us from this distance." Will suggested. The two apprentices shrugged at that while Gilan and the other Ranger looked rather doubtful.

"Not likely. Even if he did choose to start today's practice from a long distance away, he should've moved closer and closer and be within earshot by now." Gilan said, shaking his head slowly. "No, the only explanation I can think of for his current absence is that he wandered off at some point during the practice."

"Without telling any of us or leaving any signs?" Peter asked, his expression concerned. "What could've possibly possess him to do such a thing?" Gilan shrugged.

"I guess it's up to us to find out. I'm sure he would've left a trail around here or something. How about you three apprentices head back to the Gathering with Peter here while I try to track him down?" Most of the group seemed ready to accept this decision. Will, however, could practically hear his instincts screaming at him.

 _Don't leave him here alone, don't leave him here alone, don't leave him here alone, don't leave him-_

"Wait, wouldn't it be faster if one of us stayed here to help you search?" Will blurted out, secretly shocked at how calm his voice came out as he spoke up. "After all, two heads are better than one and we have no idea where his trail might start. And like you said, it's getting late, so the sooner we can find Runar, the better." Gilan considered this suggestion for a moment before slowly nodding.

"I suppose that could help." He said, looking at Will with mild suspicion as if sensing the ulterior motive for the suggestion. "What do you think?" He then asked, turning to the rest of the group. Peter nodded eventually.

"It makes sense. Let's do it. I wouldn't really mind. Besides, it's not as if Runar could've gone very far away. I say we split up and search the area." Will wanted to protest this, again getting an ominous sense that something was about to go horribly wrong, but for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to open his mouth this time.

"Good idea. I'll search this area." Gilan agreed, pointing to his left. "Peter, you can search here." He pointed to the right. "And you three apprentices can search over there." He finished, pointing at the direction directly opposite to the Gathering Grounds. "How does that sound?" Even as everybody else in the group nodded, Will found himself staring into the depths of the forest doubtfully, the sound of his heartbeat loud in his ears.

 _You're being ridiculous_. He told himself harshly. _What could possibly go wrong? You're at the Gathering surrounded by all the-_ well _, more like half- of the Rangers in the entire Corps. Either way you'll be fine._ Even as such thoughts ran through his head, the rapidly growing shadows of the forest seemed to be slowly reaching out towards him and he felt the temperature around him plummet. _I'm not scared. Don't be scared. I won't be scare. I have no reason to be scared-_

"Will? Are you alright?" Gilan asked suddenly, cutting Will out of his trance-like staring into the forest. The apprentice abruptly shook his head to clear his mind and turned to the older Ranger.

"Yes, Gilan. I'm fine." He said, in as normal a voice as he could manage. It was clear that Gilan was unconvinced by his pathetic act, but the Ranger apparently decided to drop the subject for now.

"Well, let's get going then. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can all get back to start dinner." There were eager murmurs of agreement throughout the group and everybody then turned to their assigned area to start the search. Reluctantly, Will trailed behind the two other apprentices. As they walked, he couldn't help but glance back at the direction towards the Gathering Grounds. At that moment, he found himself wishing that Halt was there with him. He and the two other apprentice Rangers walked on in silence for a short while.

Approximately two and a half minutes into their search, the complaining started.

"The incompetency of that _Runar_ is mind-boggling." Henrik snarled suddenly, kicking aside an innocent rock unfortunate enough to be in their path. "What made him think that he could just walk off without telling anybody? And why should _we_ have to search for him? He can find his own way back to the Gathering Grounds. In fact, I bet that's where he went. He thinks himself too good to practice with the rest of us, doesn't he?" Alex smiled at him calmly.

"I'm sure Runar will have a good explanation for us whenever we find him." He said reasonably. "There's no need to always assume the worst in people, Hen." The words only seemed to further irritate the other apprentice however.

" _I told you not to call me that!_ And your pathetic optimism disgusts me." Henrik hissed. "If you want to search out here for that bumbling buffoon then go right ahead, but _I_ certainly shouldn't have to be here. _I've_ earned a break. We've been practicing out here in the woods all day! I'm tired, my feet hurt, I'm hungry, and I'm covered in bug bites. It's almost as if you people think I'm a _peasant_. Peter may be my mentor but that doesn't give him the right to subject me to this! I was hoping that he would be sensible and allow us to wait at camp for news or maybe just do some tactical exercises back at the Gathering Grounds at least, but _no_. We just _had_ to come out here because if we aren't busy then we have to be _training_ and _practicing_."

It was around this point in time that Will stopped listening to Henrik's nonsensical rambling, as the realization of just how _annoying_ his fellow apprentice could be began dawning on him. He just went on and on and _on_. Will would've been impressed by how much and how _long_ Henrik could keep talking with what seemed like just a single breath, but he was too irritated to entertain the thought at the moment.

After around five minutes, he glanced at Alex, who was energetically strolling right next to Henrik, to see if he was getting just as annoyed as Will was. Will was then disturbed to notice that the other apprentice's face seemed to be in a perpetual state of smiling to the point of being rather creepy, and that he was _completely_ unaffected by Henrik's nasally voice constantly spewing grievances against their current situation.

Will mentally sighed to himself in resignation and desperately scanned the forest around them for any signs of Runar. The sooner they found him, the sooner his fellow apprentice would _shut up_. His eyes lit up slightly as they happened to catch sight of something.

"I think I found something!" Will exclaimed excitedly and the two other apprentices turned to him. Henrik looked somewhat miffed at being interrupted in the middle of his rant, but Will didn't even notice as he walked over to the clue he had found. It was a piece of cloth stuck within a particularly thorny bush. With its mottled green and gray pattern, it clearly had once been a part of a Ranger's cloak.

"Good find," Henrik praised reluctantly as he came over along with Alex. "With any luck, We'll be out of here in no time." Will nodded meaningfully at that.

It didn't take long for them to find the rest of the missing apprentice's trail, for Runar had apparently made no attempts to hide his tracks. In fact, based on the trail they were following, Will thought that it almost seemed as if Runar had been in a _rush_. He had asked his two companions for their thoughts on the matter but they had both shrugged.

"I don't have that great of a memory so I've never been that great of a tracker. I always forget what I'm supposed to be looking for and how predict things based only on a trail." Alex said apologetically.

"I'm more skilled in tactics rather than any type of… _fieldwork_." Henrik managed to admit through gritted teeth.

Will had to force himself to resist looking _too_ shocked and disappointed, before he turned around abruptly and continued following Runar's tracks. It would appear that he would be leading them for now.

As minute after minute passed and they went deeper and deeper into the woods however, Will couldn't help but begin feeling that his earlier suspicions had been correct. The more they followed the tracks, the more it looked as if the missing apprentice had practically _crashed_ his way through the forest and his footsteps had grown progressively sloppier as the tracks went on.

By now, it was almost completely dark and the chill that Will was feeling was no longer just his imagination as the temperature dropped with the last fading rays of sunlight. He could barely see the tracks at this point, let alone follow them, despite how obvious they were. Eventually, he stopped abruptly and turned around to face the other two apprentices, who had been uselessly following his lead.

"I think we should head back." Will said, viciously forcing any nervousness from affecting his voice. "It's getting dark and soon we won't be able to see any of these tracks anymore."

"Fine by me." Henrik agreed instantly. "I'm ready to go back to a nice warm dinner and my tent." Alex however, wasn't quite on the same track.

"What about Runar? We can't just leave him here. He clearly hadn't been going towards the Gathering Grounds. What if he's lost? As fellow Rangers, we should help him or at the very least, we could continue following his trail until it's fully dark." Will wanted to protest, but a stab of guilt shut his mouth. He hadn't thought of his suggestion as abandoning another Ranger, but now that Alex put it like that, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

The dread swirling around in his gut was so strong now that he almost wanted to throw up, but he determinedly resisted the urge. Every scrap of instinct he had was shrieking at him to turn around now, but like he had been doing all day, he pushed those voices aside.

"Alright, _fine_. We'll keep following the trail for a little while, but then we're heading back." He relented. Henrik glared at both him and Alex.

"I hate you guys." He declared flatly, but made no move to head back by himself.

And so, the three of them continued to follow the tracks. The rest of their search didn't last very long however, for about a two minutes later, they reached the end of the trail. Will felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he stared down at the ground before him. There was no Runar here. Instead, the tracks, which had been so clear and violent up to this point ended here abruptly, as if the missing apprentice had simply disappeared at this very spot. He saw no signs of a struggle, nor any signs of any more tracks indicating where the apprentice could've gone from here.

Beating down a rising sense of alarm and frustration, Will sighed heavily. "There's no more tracks. I think something is obviously wrong here and the sun has completely set. We should head back now and tell some other, fully fledged Rangers about all this." Turning to his companions, he saw both of them finally nodding in agreement and he felt a cautious sense of relief at the thought of finally being able to return to the safety of the Gathering Grounds.

"Finally!" Henrik said. "I think I have calluses on my calluses now. I swear-" He stopped his complaining abruptly as his eyes seemed to notice and focus on something behind Will. Both of the other apprentices, noticing this, eventually followed his gaze. Will frowned and felt his heart suddenly picking up speed.

Perhaps about fifty meters away, almost completely hidden by the shadows of the night, was a relatively small shadowy figure.

"Is that…" Will began, his voice trailing off uncertainly.

"Runar!" Alex called excitedly. "It's us! What're you doing here? We were actually out here looking for you! Why haven't you gone back to the Gathering Grounds anyway? It's nighttime now!" In the silence of the forest, the apprentice Ranger's voice sounded like thunder. Will winced.

"You better have a good reason for wandering off on us like that!" Henrik joined in angrily. "What were you _thinking?_ "

Runar however, was dead silent and didn't even seem to notice them. Will suddenly became very aware of his position being slightly in front of his two companions and felt strangely exposed and vulnerable.

 _That's not Runar. That's not Runar._ His instincts chanted. _But who else could it be?_ The location of the Gathering Grounds was a secret, so there was no way that anybody else other than a Ranger could be wandering around in this forest... _Is there?_

"Why isn't that imbecile responding to us?" Henrik growled, stepping forward.

"Maybe he still can't hear us?" Alex suggested uncertainly. "Or maybe he's hurt or something! We should go over and check on him." The two apprentices both began approaching the dark figure. Will hung back for a moment, petrified. For some reason, his feet _refused_ to move.

"Guys…" He said in a small voice that he knew his companions would never hear. "Wait-" At that moment, apparently finally noticing them, the small figure began waving at them violently. Not in greeting however, but instead trying to warn them to stop approaching. "Stop!" Impulsively, Will ran forward to pull the other two Rangers back.

Perhaps if he had just been a little faster, just a single step ahead, everything would've been different. But as it was, the moment he grabbed them, they all seemed to step across a line, over a point of no return.

With a violent rush, the world suddenly seemed to turn upside down and they all stumbled and fell forward. The figure of Runar abruptly vanished into thin air. Will lost his hold on the two other apprentices, but at that moment, that was the last of his worries.

He felt suddenly _dizzy_ and off balance, as if somebody had hit him on his head. There was a ringing sound filling his ears and he heard himself groaning as if from a long way away. Will tried in vain to focus on his breathing to calm down and regain his bearings quickly, but the air seemed to keep getting stuck in his throat and he just ended up choking on it. It was almost as if he was _suffocating_. His heart seemed to be attacking his ribcage as it beat desperately and violently against it so hard that it _hurt_. Will clutched at his chest weakly and curled up on the forest ground, squeezing his eyes shut as he desperately hoped that whatever this awful feeling was, it would quickly pass.

He was on the verge of passing out into a nice, oblivious state of unconsciousness when the screaming started. The voices were somewhat familiar, but he heard them as if from a long way away. Reluctantly, he managed to crack open one eye.

Everything seemed to be spinning around him and his vision was blurry, but he managed to make out the forms of several Rangers, way more than the amount he had seen back when he first arrived at the Gathering Grounds. For some odd reason, he saw his two companions fighting and struggling against the other Rangers and he recognized the familiar shouting and screaming voices to be them. The other Rangers were strangely and ominously silent.

For a moment, he entertained the idea that he had gone insane. It was the only explanation he had for why he was seeing what he was seeing at the moment. After all, why were there so many Rangers here suddenly? He and the other two apprentices had been out here completely alone just a few moments ago as far as he was aware. There was no logical explanation for how so many Rangers could've suddenly appeared, and therefore he _had_ to be hallucinating.

He didn't get much time to ponder on the matter however, as the screaming and shouting of the two apprentices soon abruptly stopped and Will's vision suddenly dimmed for a moment. He tried to see what had happened, squinting in their direction determinedly, but he couldn't see anything for the life of him. In fact, he couldn't even see the blurry figures of Alex and Henrik at all anymore. For all intents and purposes, it would appear that they were no longer here. He blinked. So he _was_ hallucinating.

Even as he struggled to process his predicament, he saw some of the unknown, mysterious Rangers break off from the rest of the strange pack they had formed to approach him. He tried to look up at them only to be initially blinded by the unexpectedly glaring light of the stars above him. As his eyes slowly adjusted, he finally managed to make out the faces of a couple of the Rangers that were now standing over him.

The first thought that crossed his mind when he saw them was that neither of them looked particularly familiar. The second was the realization that they both had pitch black eyes, so dark that they almost looked like that had empty eye sockets. Will, frowned, too out of it to think too much about this observation beyond the fact that something was off about their strange faces.

They were reaching down now, evidently intending to grab him. Perhaps they were trying to help him up. Despite that that thought however, his body seemed to move on its own as it desperately backed away from those hands. The screams of his instincts had long ago been exhausted, leaving him now with only with its echoes and a resigned, empty sense of dread.

He shouldn't let them grab him. That much he was pretty sure of. Those hands reaching out for him now didn't seem to be friendly or inviting, but instead menacing. He couldn't help but feel that the moment those hands caught him, they would never let go. Those were not hands in his mind. They were more like shackles.

Disoriented and unable to even sit up properly however, the hands eventually caught a hold of him. He fought back violently, kicking, clawing, and biting at the creatures surrounding him while he screamed. Throughout all this, his mind became distant and calm.

He wondered what exactly had went wrong this evening, what had led him to this moment. Perhaps he should've listened to his instincts. Maybe he could've headed back earlier or not volunteer to stay in the forest to help Gilan search for the missing apprentice in the first place.

But he hadn't done that and he found that he didn't regret that particular action. If he had allowed Gilan to search the forest on his own, there was a very good chance that the other Ranger would be in his own current position. _He_ might've been the one to never return to the Gathering Grounds.

At that thought, Will realized that he had already given up. He was not expecting to somehow escape the "Rangers" surrounding him. And with that realization, he felt the hands finally getting a secure, iron-grip on his arms.

It was over. All over.

 _At least I managed to help Gilan escape this fate…_ He thought, swaying on his feet within the grasp of the strange-faced creatures around him. Suddenly, he felt very tired and sleepy. Not a second had passed after he had thought however, when he heard someone screaming again.

"Will! Hold on!" His eyes snapped open wide as he heard the voice. It was instantly recognizable, but he couldn't comprehend how he was hearing it. Once again, he wondered if he was hallucinating or having some really long and impossibly weird dream.

But that hopeful notion shattered before it was even fully formed, when he turned his head to the direction from which the voice had come. Horror filled his eyes as he saw with dismay a single, unfortunately familiar Ranger around seventy-five meters away, recklessly crashing through the forest and heading straight for him. The swarm of the not-Rangers around him charged forward to meet the lone, actual Ranger, while a small group stayed back to quickly finish dealing with Will apparently.

Will's sight of the scene was soon blocked and filled by the strange faces of the creatures that now had their iron grips locking him in place, preventing any movement. There was a roaring sound in his ears and he felt like his head was about to split in two with the tidal wave of confusion and terror flooding his mind. He only had time to cry out a single, desperate word before he blacked out.

"GILAN!" A fraction of a second later, a blinding white light exploded before his eyes and his breath seemed to be forcefully sucked out of his own lungs. A numbness centered in his chest quickly spread to the rest of his body.

A few moments later, his mind went blank and he knew no more.

* * *

 **A/N: Did you make it here to the end? Congrats and thanks if you did! I wasn't expecting this to be so long... Constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated, especially considered how much I struggled with this chapter! Please? I'd love to know your thoughts beyond "it's good, please update" although those are nice as well. Now onto responses to reviews:**

 **To my two (?) guests and M.T.: I'm glad you're reading and excited for this story! However, be aware that these chapters are going to take awhile to write. Nothing is prewritten and as you can see, these chapters are long. It will take me at LEAST 1-2 weeks to update and sometimes even longer once school gets started again. Sorry, that's just how it is. So there's no need to despair if I don't update as quickly as you might expect/want. If it helps at all, I usually update on Sunday afternoons, so there's no need to check in everyday either. Just have some patience, ok? I know you probably mean well but it kinda feels a little pressuring to have someone constantly asking about updates, especially when I'm a slow writer. Thanks :)**

 **Christian: Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **Weirdo: Here's the next chapter! Next one is coming hopefully soon!**

 **MagicalMysteryPhantom: What? XD**

 **I think I'm going to start giving some hints about next chapters at the end of each update. So, I'll say that the next chapter I'm currently working on will be dedicated mostly to briefly going over Gilan's side of the story and the consequences of this chapter. That, and of course Halt's reaction to this chapter's... momentous events ;) But until then, I EndlessStars, bid you farewell!**


	3. Chapter 3: Gone

**A/N: Okay, so I had a lot planned for this chapter and unfortunately, it took way longer than I thought it would. Originally, I was going to progress the** **plot a lot more, showing what happens after last chapter's events. However, for everything coming up to make sense, I needed to fill in what Gilan was up to during the last chapter after he and Will split up and I also really wanted to show Halt's reaction to realizing his apprentices were missing. This alone took over the ENTIRE chapter... So this is basically a continuation of the last chapter, showing Halt's and Gilan's perspectives of what had gone on for them during the last chapter and also this helps set up for the next chapter. Also another note, this chapter's snippet at the beginning is going to be from the past rather than the future. Each of these little parts at the beginning of the chapters are meant to somehow connect with either that chapter or an** _ **upcoming**_ **chapter's content- hint hint, wink wink ;) - and they will include either parts of the past, future, and eventually the present as well. (For example, for the first chapter, the beginning shows a dire situation that the beginning of this story will lead to and for the second chapter, the snippet partially introduces the creatures that end up responsible for kidnapping Will at the end of the chapter. I'm not sure how clearly that all came across though, so some feedback and thoughts on this chapter would be nice)**

 **Thank you to everybody who favorited/followed/reviewed, it's awesome to know that people are reading this! I would also love some constructive criticism though, so I can keep improving (I always have this paranoia that my story/writing quality declines from chapter to chapter, so some feedback would help a lot). I'd especially like to know what I could maybe have cut from these chapters to make them shorter, since one of the reasons I take so long to update is because I have to write and then edit SO much, so I'd love advice on how I might be able to stop writing so much! Once again, I'll respond to reviews at the end of the chapter. Now with no further ado, let the story begin!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: If I owned this, then this would be canon and not on some fanfic website**

Chapter 3: Gone

 _Morgarath's eyes were dark with anger as he stormed into his throne room. It was a pathetic excuse for a throne room, with a minimal amount of decorations and dull gray stone walls. There were no windows and the ceiling itself was also rather low, making the room feel cave-like and cramped. Along the walls were rows of torches, the only source of light in the room, which bathed everything in a blood red glow. All in all, it was a pretty gloomy sight. The only reason he had chosen this to be his throne room in the first place was because it was honestly the biggest room he had in his disposal._

 _As his eyes raked over the room, Morgarath felt his anger increase exponentially. The pitiful state of his so-called headquarters served as a great reminder of all that he had lost. All of his servants and followers unconsciously leaned away from him as they caught sight of his expression._

 _Moodily, he plopped down onto his throne, only for a vein to practically bulge from his forehead as he heard his "throne" creak and groan under his weight. It was more of a glorified chair than a throne and it was equally as unimpressive as the room it was in, built from wood and polished scraps of metal._

 _Still, it was_ his _, and he felt somewhat calmed as he felt a satisfying rush of power when he looked around at the few cowering people in the room. He may not have the riches and resources he had once had, but his army has only grown throughout recent years. Soon, he would get back everything that he had lost and more. That was why he had even bothered to come here today._

 _His secretary clumsily stepped up as Morgarath gave him a gesture. "M-my lord, I present to you General Connor, the head of intelligence." The Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night noted with some satisfaction that the man was barely able to keep his voice from shaking with fear. At the words, a tall man with a mop of dark hair came forward to stand directly before him a respectful distance away._

" _Why have you come here, General? What news do you bring me?" He drawled, sounding rather bored despite the spark of anticipation and excitement that he felt. "It better be good."_

" _We've been working on gathering more intelligence on the Ranger Corps, as you've ordered us to." The man began monotonously, seemingly unintimidated by Morgarath's icy tone and words. "It has been difficult but we've learned much these past few months. Notably, we've managed to determine and compile a list of the identities of the Rangers for each of the fifty fiefs in Araluen." He pulled out a piece of paper at that and presented it to Morgarath, who took it and began looking over it lazily. The General then returned to his position a respectful distance away._

 _For the next few minutes, the man babbled on and on about the various things that the intelligence forces had found out during the past few months. Morgarath barely looked up from the list the entire time, only half-listening. Most of it wasn't particularly interesting information and it would all be in an official report later should he ever need the information at any point in the future. His attitude quickly changed however, when the General mentioned a particular name._

" _By far the most difficult task you've given us is finding information on the specific Rangers you've listed. However, so far we have managed to find out some rather interesting things about Ranger Halt that indicate a potential weakness." Morgarath's eyes narrowed as he immediately gave his head of intelligence his full and undivided attention. As if anticipating his reaction, the man barely even flinched under his gaze, although he did hesitate to continue._

"Well? _" Morgarath finally snapped impatiently as a brief moment of silence stretched on way too long for his liking. "What is it?" The General took a deep breath and seemed to gather his thoughts before he spoke._

" _According to our agents, the Ranger has apparently taken on an apprentice recently, a boy by the name of Gilan. As one of the most isolated and antisocial members of the Corps, this potentially opens up a rare weakness for Ranger Halt: someone that could be used against him. We are currently still working on profiles for each of the Rangers of interest and as of right now, the apprentice is by far Ranger Halt's weakest link that we know of." There was a brief moment of silence as Morgarath absorbed and seemed to think over this news._

" _How interesting," He eventually said in a low, deceptively tranquil voice. Although he had little outward reaction to this news, he mentally smiled to himself gleefully. When the time comes, he would be sure to remember_ this _piece of information. From his experience with the Ranger, he knew that Halt was annoyingly resilient and persistent. But the loss of someone he cared for,_ his own apprentice _, would almost certainly be one of the few things that would be able to break him._

" _You've done well General." He finally said after a long moment. "Continue to gather information and update the profiles for any new discoveries. Completing those profiles, especially Ranger_ Halt's _, are your top priority at the moment. Add the apprentice onto your watch list as well. I want to keep an eye on his progress…" The General dipped his head in acknowledgment and Morgarath then waved his hand at him dismissively. "You can go now. Whatever other information you have for me can be put in a report. I don't want to see you again until those profiles are complete to my satisfaction."_

 _As the General left, Morgarath skimmed over the list of Rangers once more, smiling darkly to himself. He had many years left before he could take his revenge, but already, he could taste it. In his mind's eye, he imagined the look on Halt's face as he lost everything. How sweet that image was indeed._

* * *

 _Ten years later…_

The sun had fully set by the time Halt and the other senior Rangers finally left the command tent. Halt found himself hungry and rather tired from all the hours he'd just spent pouring over the strange disappearances of all the missing Rangers. The fact that he would later have to return to the command tent for another meeting to help prepare a long overdue announcement to the rest of the Corps after dinner did little to lighten his mood.

As he exited the tent with a particularly grim and grumpy expression on his face, he looked around in search for where Will had set up their camp. After a few minutes of walking about, his eyes eventually settled onto a vaguely familiar scene.

His apprentice had somewhat predictably set up their tent in the exact same spot he had set it up in during the last short-lived Gathering. And equally unsurprisingly, he saw that Gilan's tent was once more set up directly next to theirs as well. Distantly, he wondered if this was where they would all set up camp from now on as he approached.

When he got closer however, Halt frowned as he also saw that both his current and former apprentices were evidently not occupying the camp and were nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that it was fully dark now. The fire they should've started was currently little more than a pile of rapidly cooling embers, having seemingly been put out earlier that evening. Beside what was once the fire was a pot of water, clearly ready to be turned into a nice, warm meal of stew but apparently abandoned before such a meal had been made. His stomach grumbled at him at the thought of food.

Halt quickly scanned the area for any signs of his apprentices or anything indicating where they had wandered off to, but in the shadows of the night he saw nothing but darkness. Assessing the situation, he theorized that Gilan had most likely been with Will and that they had both probably gone off to do some practice of some sort. But even if that were the case, they should be back by now. Gilan knew better than to wander around in the woods at night, for there was little they'd be able to accomplish in the dark anyway.

 _Perhaps they had decided to eat dinner with some of the other Rangers._ Even as he had the thought and walked towards the closest fire he could see, Halt was doubtful of that explanation though. Judging by the pot of water and evidence of a fire, his apprentices had clearly been planning on making their own dinner upon their return from wherever they had gone off to. If they had decided on a change of plans, they would've cleaned up everything and maybe even have left a note for him.

"Halt? Is that you?" One of the Rangers in the group he was approaching called out rather loudly. The other three Rangers sitting around the fire all turned to look at him as well.

"Hello." Halt greeted them curtly, not in a particularly chatty mood at the moment.

"We were worried that you weren't going to make it! It's good to see you." The Ranger that had called out replied in a lighthearted tone with a friendly smile, perhaps in a vain attempt to get Halt to lighten up. Halt's slight frown only darkened however, as the words unintentionally reminded him of the over twenty or so Rangers that were currently missing.

"Well, I can see that you're as cheerful as ever." Another Ranger commented dryly and the others all chuckled. With a great effort, Halt decided to ignore that gem of a statement and get straight to the point.

"Do any of you know where my idiot former apprentice and current apprentice have wandered off to? Neither of them were at our camp." Each of the four Rangers turned to look at each other before all shrugging.

"I saw Gilan arriving yesterday, rather late in the evening." One of them eventually provided. "He was pretty worried about you and your apprentice. I haven't seen him all this afternoon, though. I think he might've been trying to busy himself while waiting for you guys. Wish I could tell you more, but that's all I know." As the Ranger finished speaking, he took another bite of the stew that he and his friends had made and were currently eating. Halt couldn't help but stare as his traitorous stomach rumbled loudly at the sight. His fellow Rangers all turned to him at the sound. Creepily, four eyebrows lifted in perfect unison and Halt's mood almost instantly plummeted from cloudy to downright thunderous.

"Are you hungry Halt?" The Ranger that had first greeted him asked, half-sympathetically and half-amused. "I can get you a bowl of stew if you want."

"I didn't know the _legendary Halt_ could get hungry." A significantly less wise Ranger piped up with an innocent grin. The grizzled old Ranger gave him a death glare. He was lucky that Halt was in the middle of tracking down his two apprentices at the moment.

"No thanks, I'll-" Another rumbling from his stomach, this time even louder than the one before, interrupted him. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the snickers of a couple of the Rangers who were practically going blue in their poor attempts to suppress their laughter as they saw the look on Halt's face. "Can I take some to go?" He eventually asked through gritted teeth, barely able to stop himself from outright snarling the words at his fellow Rangers. The grizzled Ranger had determined that he should deal with his hunger before it further embarrassed him.

A few minutes later, Halt found himself awkwardly eating stew from a small bowl as he walked over to the next group of Rangers a small distance away. There were three of them this time, with one of them clearly also visiting seeing as there were only two tents set up around the camp and one of them was standing up while the other two were sitting down and enjoying their dinner.

"Well if it isn't the legend himself?" One of the Rangers in the group exclaimed when he noticed the grizzled older Ranger approaching. "Halt, it's good to see you here! How-"

"Have any of you seen Gilan or my current apprentice?" Halt didn't particularly want to be rude, but if he kept on making small talk with every group of Rangers he would have to interrogate to discern the whereabouts of his missing companions, he would be searching until sunrise.

Somewhat surprisingly, all of the Rangers at the camp frowned at his question. Something in their expressions told him that they at least seemed to know something.

"No, I haven't seen a shadow of Gilan all day." One of them said apologetically. "As for your current apprentice, I don't really know what he looks like and I didn't see you guys whenever you arrived at camp. You're not the only one looking for their apprentice, though." The Ranger gestured at the man standing beside him. "Theo here was asking us a similar question just now." Halt turned to look at the said Ranger, a light haired man with a worried and weary expression marring his face.

"I'm looking for my own apprentice as well." The other Ranger confirmed. "Runar Bardenson? I don't suppose you've seen him around?" Halt shook his head and felt a twinge of sympathy as the rather young Ranger's face crumbled a bit and his shoulders slumped. "I've been looking for him all evening. He and two other apprentices had gone off to do some practice with Ranger Peter earlier this afternoon, but I think they should be back now, shouldn't they?" His words echoed Halt's own thoughts from earlier and the older Ranger frowned as he felt his apprehension rise significantly.

"Have you asked Peter or any of the other apprentices that had gone to practice with him?" He asked, hiding his reaction well. Theo shook his head.

"I wouldn't still be searching if I could do that. But I couldn't find any of them either! I checked their camps and asked around, but so far, it seems that no one ever even saw any of them returning." He sighed heavily. "Am I just overthinking this? Peter's a pretty experienced Ranger and I'm sure he knows what he's doing, but then they _should_ be _back now by now_. Any Ranger or man with half a brain should know better than to stay out there in the woods at this hour!" Halt was silent for a moment as he thought over the situation with an unpleasant feeling settling comfortably in his gut.

Something was off here. It was one thing for Will and Gilan to be absent from their camp. It was a completely different thing for both his apprentices and another separate group to be nowhere to be seen. The fact that no one had apparently seen any of the missing Rangers all afternoon did little to help settle his nerves. Everything pointed to something having gone wrong. _Very_ wrong. His fellow Rangers seemed to have reached a similar conclusion, judging by their expressions.

"You're right. I think Peter and the other apprentices _should_ have returned by now." One of the Rangers eventually said, nodding slowly. "But I'm sure there's a good explanation for all this. Perhaps something came up, like one of them getting injured, and they've been held up for a bit."

"But if that had happened, they would've sent someone back to tell the rest of the Corps their situation." Halt pointed out grimly, his mind tearing through a list of different scenarios explaining their current predicament, each one worse than the next. He tried telling himself that it was just paranoia talking. That did next to nothing for him though.

"That's all the more reason to suspect that something's gone wrong then." Theo said, his fear evident in his voice. "They're obviously not at camp. If they were, I would've seen them by now. That means they're still out there in the woods for some reason. We have to go out and search for them! _Now_." Halt nodded in agreement. If none of the missing Rangers were at their camps, then his apprentices and the other group of Rangers _had_ to be somewhere out in the woods surrounding the Gathering Grounds. With all the missing Rangers at the moment, finding them was top priority, even if this was potentially an overreaction.

"This might be a serious situation. We should go tell Crowley about this first." Halt said firmly, pushing aside the foreign, sick feeling in swirling about in his stomach. "You two," He gestured at the two Rangers who were still sitting before him. "Go tell the other Rangers here to gather around the command tent. Theo and I will go ahead and find Crowley." He had already set down his half finished dinner and was turning to leave before his last words even came out of his mouth. Behind him, he could hear the two Rangers and Theo all moving to follow his instructions.

As he briskly walked across the Gathering Grounds towards where he knew Crowley's camp was, Halt tried to gather his thoughts, which had just been scattered upon his realization that his apprentices weren't simply just absent, but actually _missing_.

There was still a very good chance that he was overreacting. After all, with the location of the Gathering Grounds being one of the most well protected secrets in the kingdom and a remote, forbidding place, the chances of any Rangers encountering any serious trouble was _very_ small. To most of the world outside of the Ranger Corps, there should be no reason to ever approach the forest in which the Gathering Grounds laid hidden in anyway. Still, Halt felt a dread slowly creeping over him as his fear grew to a degree that he rarely ever felt. It wasn't fear for himself though, but rather fear for his two apprentices.

He had to forcefully restrain himself from sprinting across the Gathering Grounds despite his unusual fear however. If he appeared alarmed, all it would really do was make the Rangers around him nervous as well. Besides, there was no real reason for him to panic or appear alarmed. _Yet_. As a result of their normal and reasonable speed however, it took them far longer than Halt liked to reach Crowley's camp.

When they finally arrived though, he and Theo saw from a short distance away a disheveled Ranger already there before them. The man appeared tense as he talked to the Ranger Commandant in a low voice that still managed to carry a note of alarm. Crowley didn't even notice their approach as he stared at the Ranger disbelievingly with wide eyes.

"Peter?" Theo muttered to himself, apparently recognizing the man. He then called out to his fellow Ranger in a louder voice. "Peter! Thank god I've finally found you. I've been looking everywhere for you!" At the sound of his voice, Crowley's eyes snapped in their direction while Peter flinched violently as he jerkily looked back at them.

Theo _had_ to have noticed the other Ranger's appearance and expression, and known that all was not well, but he was apparently clinging onto blind hope and optimism as he denied all the negative implications that he definitely saw in the scene before them. For a fleeting moment, Halt almost wanted to join him in his denial.

There was an uncomfortable silence and stillness as the two Rangers finally got to Crowley's camp, standing next to Peter around a dim, dying fire. Halt was looking at Crowley expectantly, waiting for an explanation. Theo kept his head down and kept coughed loudly in a childish, failed attempt to break the silence. Crowley was still staring at Peter with wide eyes. Peter took a sudden intense interest in his feet as he avoided eye contact with any of the Rangers surrounding him at the moment.

Eventually, Halt decided that he'd had enough. He had a couple of missing apprentices to find and they were wasting time standing here, staring at each other.

"What's going on?" He demanded flatly, his dark eyes boring into the gazes of his Commandant and Peter. "Why are you two acting like somebody just died?" Something in his words must've struck a nerve as Crowley finally turned fo look at him, his eyes filling with a peculiar sadness and worry for him. Whatever color that had been left in Peter's face drained from it as the man, with a great effort, managed to look up at Halt. There was an unexpected and strange dread in his expression.

"It's your apprentices…" Peter choked out quietly, his eyes going from Halt to Theo. "Both of your apprentices. I-" His words cut off abruptly as he seemed to choke on the rest of his sentence. Theo stared at him with wide eyes and unrestrained fear. Halt's gaze became ice cold and heavier than before.

" _What?_ " The grizzled Ranger demanded quietly, hiding the whirlwind of emotions tearing away at his mind at the moment. "What has happened to our apprentices?" Peter dropped his eyes from that of the older Ranger's once more.

"I think they're gone." He then finally breathed out, his voice sounding like the mere whisper of a breeze.

* * *

Gilan had gotten lost and attacked about ten minutes into his search for Runar, the missing apprentice.

Being a fully fledged Ranger and one with a rather sharp memory on top of that, he wasn't sure how it had all happened in the first place. After all, it wasn't as if he had been very far away from the Gathering Grounds, so the woods he was in should've been familiar to him and impossible to get lost in. And yet it seemed as if from one moment of looking down at the ground for any signs of tracks to the next moment of looking up, those supposedly familiar trees had scrambled themselves into an unfamiliar maze.

It had all happened so suddenly and without him noticing that Gilan had found himself looking around quickly to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He had rubbed his eyes desperately and stared intensely at the trees around him in a poor attempt to recognize them, as if looking at them hard enough would result in familiarity. After a few minutes, he inevitably gave up and was forced to face the reality that somehow, he had managed to get lost.

The young Ranger hadn't been sure how he was supposed to deal with his predicament, with his mind barely able to even process what had just happened let alone figure out a solution. However, he never got the chance to ponder on his situation for long anyway, as a moment later, he heard the sound of rustling leaves somewhere to his left, signaling the presence of another person walking through the forest by the sounds of it.

Gilan had turned to the direction of the noise quickly, immediately tense. With whatever strange occurrence that had just happened, he was unusually on edge. He could feel his heart picking up speed as he searched for the source of the sound he'd just heard.

Eventually, he caught sight of a dark figure drifting through the woods. It was, not surprisingly, a Ranger. Or at least, it had the appearance of a Ranger, for Gilan hesitated to reach out to the figure or make himself known.

Something in the way that the man moved, in how he ambled through the forest with all the grace of a drunken bear, was decidedly very un-Ranger like and unsettling. The stiff movements of his limbs seemed unnatural. After all, even when they weren't trying to hide their presence, Rangers were usually naturally light and graceful on their feet, making this Ranger's movements very odd indeed.

For a moment, Gilan almost decided to draw out his sword, before he realized what he was about to do and shook his head vigorously. No, this was _ridiculous_. He was currently at a Gathering and this was obviously just another fellow Ranger. There was no reason for him to need his weapon out. The man probably had a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he was walking so strangely. Perhaps he was injured somehow. Still, Gilan was tense as he called out to the other Ranger.

"Hey! Over here!" He said loudly, waving his hand in greeting. "I'm Ranger Gilan! Who are you and what are you doing out here?" At the sound of his voice, the Ranger turned around quickly and stiffly. As he did so, Gilan noted how the man briefly went to adjust his hood so that much of his face remained hidden in shadows.

For a long few minutes, the young Ranger waited for the other Ranger to respond. After a while though, it became clear that he had no intention of saying anything. Gilan frowned.

"Hello? Anybody home?" He asked in a forced, lighthearted tone, even as his hands slowly drifted over to his sword hilt. He had felt the stare of the other man on him and decided that it wasn't a particularly friendly gaze. "You okay there? Are you hurt or need any help?" This time, the Ranger _did_ respond.

"You said you are Ranger Gilan?" His voice was disturbingly hollow and empty, save for the barest trace of disbelief. Gilan's hand tightened its grip on his sword hilt.

He had no reason to _not_ confirm his identity, but the way that the question had been asked made him want to deny it. Still, he nodded slowly and opened his mouth to respond. He never even got his first word out.

Not a second later, in the blink of an eye, the man was before him, two knives drawn out and swinging towards his neck. Gilan let out a choked cry of surprise as he managed to whip out his sword from its scabbard to block the strike before stumbling back. He hadn't even seen the other Ranger move, let alone make his way towards him. On top of that, he had just been _attacked_ by another _Ranger_ , who had seemed intent on _killing_ him. All of this sent his mind into a shocked state.

He wanted to ask questions, to demand for the other man's identity, but another attack was already on the way and Gilan decided that such an interrogation would have to come later. Quickly, he recovered from his shock and confusion and focused on the other Ranger, who was already right before him once more.

His opponent continuously pelted him with attacks of surprising speed in rapid succession, with an unusual amount of skill for a Ranger, who usually wasn't _that_ skilled in close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat. As they fought on, with one vicious and unexpectedly powerful attack after another, Gilan could feel the force of his attacker's blows nearly _numbing his arm._

At around this point in time, he was starting to realize that the man was likely _not_ a Ranger. His strange fighting style and his two knives, which were clearly not Ranger knives, all seemed to point to that conclusion.

Gilan fought back desperately, wanting to end this duel as quickly as possible. If this was an imposter Ranger, then there were likely other enemies disguised as Rangers wandering around the Gathering Grounds. He _had_ to alert the other Rangers about this fact, for this would be a serious breach in the _entire kingdom's_ national security. And therefore, he had no time to waste playing around with his opponent.

He began to swing his sword in wild, confusing arcs and slashed at the other man viciously, with no hesitation. Many of his blows were blocked, but some got through as he managed to wound his opponent. Blood stained the razor sharp edge of his blade, only to be flung off when he swung his sword once more, splattering the trees around him with red. Slowly but surely, the other "Ranger" started backing away under Gilan's storm of attacks.

A short while later, Gilan finally felt a satisfying, meaty thunk as he managed to deliver a blow to his opponent's side, just under the ribs. The man let out only a quiet hiss of pain and Gilan quickly drew back and raised his sword with the intent to lop his head off before he had time to recover.

Inconveniently, it was at that moment that he realized that he still needed to figure out _who_ the man was along with other important information such as the presence of accomplices, and therefore he still needed the man alive. He hesitated for a moment before changing his sword stroke to be disabling rather than deadly. That moment of hesitation proved to a mistake however, as the man took the opportunity to escape and he seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye. In one moment, he was right in the path of Gilan's attack and in the next, he was suddenly twenty meters away.

By the time Gilan recovered from a moment of confusion and realized what had happened, he could already hear the loud, un-Ranger like footsteps of his opponent as he ran away. Breathing heavily, Gilan watched him as he disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

He considered chasing after the man for a moment, but almost immediately discarded that idea. There was a fairly good chance that his opponent was headed towards his allies or something to that effect. Gilan was only a single Ranger and would be able to do little if he followed the man to who knows where.

Besides, it would be easy enough to later track down his wounded opponent, who had just gone crashing through the woods, bleeding a fair amount all the while. This, coupled with the fact that he was right next to the Gathering Grounds, which was currently filled with around twenty other Rangers, made him decide that his best option was to go back and warn the other Rangers about whatever it was that had just happened to him.

He should've followed that idea and his gut instinct, and gone directly back to the relative safety of the Gathering Grounds. But at the thought of other Rangers, he was also suddenly reminded of the fact that he wasn't the only Ranger wandering around in the forest at the moment.

As the last of his adrenaline drained from him, Gilan paled significantly as he suddenly realized just how dire a situation he had managed to get himself into.

Then, feeling a sharp pain, he looked down, finally noticing a rather nasty cut on his shoulder that he had acquired at some point during his fight but hadn't noticed until this point in time. It was rather deep and starting to hurt now. He could feel the warm trickle of blood flowing out from the wound and the sticky, wet fabric of his blood soaked shirt sticking to his skin. It didn't take a doctor to figure that that he had lost a decent amount of blood.

As if to make things worse, it was also truly nighttime now, with the forest lit only by a waning moon. Looking around with a blind hope, he felt his heart sink as the forest around him still appeared very unfamiliar. This all meant that he was _still_ lost, and now also hurt and alone in the middle of a forest that was potentially filled with unknown, mysterious enemies in the darkness of the night.

Gilan decided, somewhat giddily, that this was perhaps the strangest and most terrifying moment that he had experienced in a long while. And yet, the thought that his companions from earlier in the evening may also still be out there proved to be the most frightening aspect of his predicament yet. A certain familiar apprentice in particular, came to mind.

 _Will._ He had sent his young friend off with only two of the other apprentices when they had split up. There was every chance that his opponent who had just ran off would bump into the group apprentice Rangers.

In his mind's eye, he could see the man cutting down the apprentices with his strange knives and almost inhuman strength. Considering the fight he'd just had, he was quite sure that three apprentices would have little to no chance against such an opponent. He could see Will's body as it fell to the ground, painting the forest around him with his blood, smell the awful stench of blood, hear the hollow sound of a body dropping to the ground. His own wound's pain intensified at those thoughts. Instantly, another rush of adrenaline tore through his veins and he felt his heartbeat pick up significantly.

He _should_ get back to the Gathering Grounds. His top priority was to inform the other Rangers about the threat of the strange enemies in these forests. Beyond all that, for all he knew, Will might've already gotten back to their camp by now and was preparing dinner by the campfire, safe and sound. Considering how dark it was, he should already be there by now.

But Halt had taught him a long time ago that the law of the universe was that if something could go wrong, it would. It would go as wrong as it could possibly go. Somehow, he _knew_ that Will was still out there in the woods somewhere.

And with that knowledge, he also knew that he couldn't return to the Gathering Ground until he at least tried to search for his friend. If there had been another Ranger with him, perhaps he could've been talked out of it, but as of that moment, his guilt physically didn't allow him any other option. Distantly, he wondered if Runar had fallen to the mysterious enemies lurking about the forest, before pushing it aside. He had absolutely no idea where the apprentice could've gone and therefore, his priority would be to help the apprentices that he _did_ know the general location of. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

His mind made up, the young Ranger quickly went to follow the tracks of the imposter Ranger. Even in the dark, Gilan could easily follow the man's trail as his fresh blood glistened under the moonlight. He briefly noted how the blood almost seemed to have a strange, dim purple glow that appeared to somewhat _light up_ his path, but dismissed it as a mere trick of the light. Whatever it was, it allowed him to practically run as he followed the trail of his attacker, which was absolutely no issue as far as he was concerned.

About a couple of minutes later, the sudden sounds screaming in the distance bought him to a screeching halt. The voices, almost unrecognizable with the sheer terror they contained, sounded like that of the two apprentices that had been with Will.

Gilan's breath got caught in his throat as listened on, frozen for a moment. He'd never heard screams quite like this before, the sounds of mindless, animalistic terror. And through it all, he realized in horror that he didn't hear Will's voice among those screams. Oddly enough, he found the absence of his friend's voice to be much more awful than if he _had_ heard his screams.

The Ranger looked between to the direction of the screaming and the direction the trail of blood led to, noticing that they went in opposite directions. The direction he needed to take was obvious though.

Snapping out of his daze, Gilan took off in the direction of the screams, sprinting as best he could through the forest. Branches clawed at him all the way through, tearing at his clothes, poking and digging into his shoulder wound and adding thin red trails of scratches onto his skin, and sometimes slowing him down as his cloak got snagged in the branches at times. Still, he didn't slow down, and crashed through anything in his way recklessly.

At some point in time, the two screaming voices had abruptly been cut off only to be replaced with a frighteningly familiar voice's shouting, though Will didn't sound nearly as terrified as the other two apprentices had been. Instead, he sounded not only scared, but also confused.

Gilan was close now. Under the dim light of the moon, he could make out a long way a way a dark smudge that appeared to be a huddle of people in the middle of the woods. Somehow, he managed to pick up his already fast pace even more.

As he quickly approached, he managed to make out what appeared to be a group of around twenty figures all wearing the cloaks of Rangers. He knew well enough now however, that they were no Rangers. Amidst the group, he could see Will struggling against them violently as they tried to get a good grasp on the apprentice Ranger. However, Gilan could see that his friend was fighting a losing battle, weakened and weaponless as he was. The young Ranger watched in horror as the apprentice began to give up, going limp in the iron hold of the mysterious enemies surrounding him.

"Will!" He screamed desperately, willing his friend to keep holding on until he could reach him. "Hold on!" The apprentice looked up at him, eyes widening with shock and dismay. About twenty other eyes swung to look at Gilan as well. The Ranger almost skidded to a halt as he saw the eyes of the swarm of imposters. They all appeared to be completely pitch black, almost looking like empty sockets. It was a truly terrifying sight, but he kept on running onwards.

After a second, the group seemed to get over Gilan's surprising appearance as a majority of members of the group charged forward to greet him then, whipping out various strange weapons as they did. Another five stayed back however, completely blocking out his view of Will with the obvious intent to finish dealing with him.

"GILAN!" The apprentice screamed, wild with desperation and fear for his friend. An instant later, even as his screams still rang in Gilan's ears, the five imposter Rangers surrounding Will disappeared along with Will himself.

Gilan then finally faltered, staring dumbly and uncomprehendingly at the spot his friend had been in just moments before. A few seconds later, his vision was filled with the green and gray cloaks of his swarm of opponents.

His grasp on his sword was weak now and no matter how tightly he tried to hold on to it, it didn't seem to be enough. The adrenaline he had been running on started to rush away from him as well, even as he got ready to fight for what he assumed to be his life. He had been determined to save his friend, to make sure they both made it back to the Gathering Grounds to deal with whatever the blazes was going on together. But in the blink of an eye, without any warning, Will had just _disappeared_ and Gilan had _failed_. The shock of it threw out all the hope and determination he'd had driving him onwards.

Considering how many enemies he was surrounded by, Gilan managed to put up a pretty good fight, but he was detached to the fight the entire time. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he-

A sharp pain registered in his mind as he felt a cold blade impaling itself into his back. Turning around, Gilan met the empty black eyes of the strange creature of a man that had just stabbed him. Instead of the burning pain he expected to feel at what appeared to be a fatal stab wound, he felt a numbness beginning to spread through him. In the moment before he passed out, Gilan managed to grasp the strange sensation of what he thought to be the feeling of his own body falling apart.

* * *

 **A/N: Much like the last chapter, this one was _long_. As in even longer than the one before it I think, making _this_ the longest chapter I've ever written now. Which is also why this took so long. This also means I MAY have rushed to get this out... Just like the last one, in which I had caught a couple of mistakes and have had to update since then to fix it up a couple days ago (hehe...). I'm sorry but I was SO tired of this chapter and I also wanted to move on. I've already been through three edits of this, but I usually want to more edits in order to catch all the mistakes, so forgive me for any issues... That said, I'd again like to say that I'd also love for some reviews pointing out any issues so I could fix it :)**

 **A bright side to how long this chapter has been is that I already have a scene partially written for the next chapter that supposed to be in this chapter, but it was getting to long so I decided to end the chapter here. Now, for review responses:**

 **Weirdo: Thanks! I hope you enjoyed this update as well. Although I must say, I hope that your confusion is a good kind of confusion and not a genuine confusion about what's going on... Next chapter will hopefully be coming soon!**

 **MagicMysteryPhantom: Thanks for the review, I greatly appreciate the feedback! It's also good to know that at least someone thinks my OCs I were okay XD**

 **M.T.: Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well! Again I hope your confusion is a good kind and you still know what's going on... lol, some feedback on what was so confusing would be greatly appreciated, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Just thanks for still reading this story and reviewing!**

 **Gerbilfriend: Thanks for the feedback and great review! I love hearing about specific things that my readers liked :)**

 **allie300093: Glad that you're enjoying this story so far, hope this chapter didn't disappoint!**

 **So for the next chapter, I'll basically include what was SUPPOSED to be in this chapter, in which Halt searches for his apprentices, but finds somebody else instead. Meanwhile, Will and Gilan wake up in a strange place... But until then, I, EndlessStars, bid you farewell!**


	4. Chapter 4: Identity

**A/N: Alright, so long story short, this took longer than I expected it to... I don't have much to say for myself other than I'm terribly sorry and that I was on vacation for the better part of the month. I also got myself a beta reader (many thanks to a311243549), who really helped polish this up and clean up some of the rougher parts of the chapter. This is also even longer than all my other chapters, so hopefully that'll make up for the long wait...?**

 **To anybody that was worried about me abandoning this story, worry not. Especially with school coming up, I may disappear for a month or two every once in a while. Even so, I'm still optimistic I'll be able to finish this and I still love writing this story, if that's any comfort to anybody. Thank you to everybody who has shown support either through reviews, favorites, follows, or even just reading up to this point. It's always a wonderful feeling to know that people are actually reading this thing lol. I already have the next chapter started and hope to get it up soon to make up for the wait. Also note that this was a really hard chapter for me since I've never written an interrogation scene before, so any feedback on that would be great. I also have concerns on if this chapter is too boring/ slowly paced, so any criticism on that would also be great.**

 **Now, without further ado, let the story continue!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than the plot and a couple of crappy OCs**

Chapter 4: Identity

 _Morgarath had been infuriated, but not surprised when he'd learned about the deaths of his last two Kalkaras. He had sent them on a hunt for_ Halt _after all, so he had almost been expecting the news of their failure, reluctant as he was to admit it even to himself. The Ranger had an annoying tendency to survive no matter how little chance he supposedly had to do so. Much like a cockroach. Still, the attempt to finally kill Halt had been worth a shot, he supposed._

 _The information he had on what exactly had happened on the night of the Kalkara's final extinction was a little fuzzy due to the fact that most of his intelligence force's attention was currently focused on their preparations to finally return to and conquer Araluen. From what little he_ did _know however, the entire event had played out rather predictably and anticlimactically._

 _Admittedly, none of his current agents were in a good position to get the specifics on whatever had happened, but from what little information they had managed to gather through the rumors circulating around Redmond fief, nothing particularly shocking had happened anyway._

 _Long story short, the Kalkaras had chased down Halt and promptly died somehow in their attempt to kill him. It was as simple as that._

 _Supposedly, the meddlesome baron of Redmont Fief and his battlemaster had also gotten involved, along with Halt's apprentice, who had reportedly been the one to deliver the fatal shot that killed the final Kalkara. The presence of these three, while not particularly expected, was not much of a revelation, however._

 _The apprentice, Gilan, in particular had always been a potential thorn in Morgarath's side ever since he'd first heard of him. Now, with the boy having become a fully fledged Ranger, that suspicion had simply been confirmed._

 _The loss of the Kalkaras was a heavy one for him. They weren't exactly the most powerful or important weapons he had in his disposal anymore, but they_ were _the only two of their kind he had left. Additionally, they represented where he had started around fifteen years ago now, when he first began building up his army. The Kalkaras had been among his first allies and now they're all gone, killed by another two Rangers._

 _Morgarath comforted himself with the fact that he now had newer, much more capable forces that could finally deal with the Ranger Corps once and for all. His revenge was almost in sight._

 _Just a few days ago, he'd sent his special force, created specifically for the purpose of destroying the Ranger Corps, on their first official mission. Any day now, they should be returning with their first captured Ranger._

 _Chances were that they wouldn't be returning with Halt, the Commandant, Crowley, or Halt's apprentice quite yet. After all, this was only supposed to be a test run, a way to measure their abilities against actual Rangers, which meant that they should be targeting easier, more average Rangers. Still, it was a start._

 _In the meantime, he would content himself with watching whichever Ranger his special force brings back to him in the upcoming days scream in agony. He had over fifteen years of anger bubbling under his cool mask, just waiting to finally find a target to unleash itself upon._

* * *

 _Six months later…_

Will woke up slowly at first, gradually drifting out from a state of dark, oblivious unconsciousness.

The feeling of pain, a deep, pulsing ache in his chest, was the first of his senses to return to him. It almost drove him to try and retreat back to the comforting shelter of sleep, but he had been trained too well to do that. He was _Halt's_ apprentice, after all. Even as he was now, he knew that he needed to wake up and figure out what was going on.

Where _was_ Halt anyway? Will somehow felt that his mentor wasn't nearby at the moment. He also distantly remembered wishing for the grizzled old Ranger's presence earlier, meaning that he hadn't been with Will when he had been knocked out for some reason.

 _Knocked out…_ What had _happened_ to him?

Curiosity and apprehension gave him a burst of energy strong enough to finally propel him fully awake. With way more effort than he had been expecting to need, he managed to peel open his eyes, which felt as if they'd been glued shut.

He then tried to look around, but was rather limited by the fact that he was having a really hard time moving his head. And every other part of his body for that matter, for even his _heart_ felt a little sluggish and the rest of his body was numb.

"Hey, I think he's waking up." A voice somewhere beside him hissed.

"About time. Though I'm not still not sure if being awake is going to be a good thing. He might have a better time of it later if he stayed unconscious." Another voice commented grimly. "Who knows what these psychopaths have planned for us? I bet they're probably going to-"

"Oh, do try to be less reassuring, Henrik. Otherwise, he might actually be able to wake up _without_ having a heart attack."

"He's a _Ranger_ just like the two of us. He'll have to face all of this eventually and in the meantime, I can really do without your sarcasm. Everything's bad enough as it is without _your_ involvement."

Before the conversation could continue, Will let out a pathetic croaking sound that had been intended to resemble the words "shut up" but ended up getting stuck in its journey up his throat. His head was pounding and the loud voices bickering beside him _really_ weren't helping.

Although the words came out as a weak, garbled mess, they served their purpose as the two voices fell silent. He sighed to himself in relief and relaxed a bit more.

Consequently, his eyes then started drooping back down as he found himself strangely tired already, despite having just woken up. Someone promptly started shaking him violently.

" _No_. Will, can you hear me? If you can, listen to me and _don't_ go back to sleep. You need to be awake and… And we can really use another Ranger here right now." His eyes reluctantly flew open once more at the words.

The voice was right. Passing out now could spell death for him in the very near future as far as he knew and by the sounds of it, he had companions who needed him awake at the moment.

Gathering his strength, Will attempted to at least sit up, driven by his determination alone seeing as his strength seemed to have abandoned him at the moment. His task was made all the harder by the ropes he now noticed binding his hands behind his back.

Beside him, he felt someone nudging him and offering him a shoulder to lean on to help him get up, presumably because the other occupants of the tent also had their hands tied up and thus couldn't do anything else to help him.

It took him a full minute and he felt like throwing up afterwards, but Will eventually managed to get into a slouched, sitting position. It was only then that he finally took the time to really look around, though his head and neck both ached intensely at the action.

He felt dizzy and off balance, as if the world had suddenly tilted sideways and he hadn't quite adjusted to it yet. Even so, he managed to determine that he was at the back of a large tent, clearly meant to hold prisoners judging by how bare it was and the fact that he was tied up.

Just outside, despite the rather dim light, he could make out the silhouettes of several guards surrounding the tent. Beyond that however, there was little else he could surmise about his situation. So, he then turned to look at the two others that had apparently been somehow captured alongside him.

In the shadows of the tent, he managed to make out the narrow face of Henrik, whose face was scrunched up in a familiar, not unexpected scowl. Beside him was another young man, also around their age, with blond hair and a concerned expression directed at Will. His face was also vaguely familiar and Will struggled to place a name to it.

"Runar?" He asked weakly and incredulously, as he finally remembered the apprentice Ranger he'd briefly been introduced to. Memories began poking at the fringes of his mind as he squinted at the other two apprentices.

"That's right. Looks like we finally ended up finding him after all." Henrik drawled. And with that, Will's memories of recent events all came back to him in a rush.

The paranoia that had been plaguing him all afternoon. The search for Runar and the suspicious looking tracks that they had followed all the way into the night. The shadowy figure in the woods. The strange spell of dizziness he still felt now and the suspiciously large group of not-Rangers. His capture. _Gilan_.

He remembered it all.

The headache gripping his head intensified significantly and his eyes widened in horror.

"Will? You alright there?" Henrik's sour expression relented a bit into something a slightly more sympathetic and understanding. "You've just remembered what happened, haven't you?" Will stared at him for a moment, before nodding wordlessly.

"W-Where's Alex? And Gilan?" He asked desperately, blindly hoping that his memories were faulty and that the other two Rangers had not been caught. The world didn't seem particularly inclined in his favor at the moment, however.

Dead silence followed his question. The air was so still and stifling that despite his weak and quiet voice, his words seem to echo between him and his companions. Will's heart began to pick up its pace.

"We don't know." Runar eventually mumbled. "We don't know _anything._ We're probably just as clueless as you are. It's only been a couple of hours since the two of us woke up here. Nothing's happened since then other than you waking up just now. They- whoever they are- haven't even bothered to check on us yet, though there's no way they _haven't_ noticed that we're awake considering that we haven't really been trying to keep it a secret."

"I wouldn't complain about that if I were you." Henrik said, his scowl firmly back in place on his face. "We have no idea what they want and I get this strange feeling that I don't really want to find out." Runar glared at the other apprentice and appeared prepared to snap at him, before he seemed to deflate and sighed heavily.

"You're probably right." He said, bowing his head in resignation. Henrik, clearly expecting a fight, blinked in surprise. An instant later, he too seemed to lose a bit of his energy as much of his anger drained away and he too bowed his head in what seemed like defeat. For a second, nobody said a thing.

"I don't suppose either of you have any ideas for an escape then?" Will finally asked, more to break the uncomfortable silence than out of any hope that one of his fellow apprentices had actually come up with a miracle of a plan.

"Nope." Runar said, trying to sound reassuring and confident. His efforts were wasted however, as both of his fellow apprentices could tell that he was only trying. "All we can do is sit here and wait." And without another word, that's exactly what the three of them did.

As it turned out, they didn't have to wait very long.

About twenty minutes had passed when a man, adorned with the markings of a high ranking officer of some sort, threw back the flaps of the tent and stormed inside, followed by six giant guards. The three apprentice Rangers had all flinched and sucked in a deep breath, startled by the sudden, unexpected entrance of the group before them.

The officer's eyes quickly raked through the small group of prisoners as he came to a stop right in front of them. Towering over the apprentices, his sharp gaze eventually met Will's own wide, horrified eyes and settled on the boy. To his credit, Will at least managed to look not any more terrified than he already was.

For a moment, the two groups both stared back at each other. The leader's eyes were fixed intently on Will alone however and Will in turn couldn't bring himself to look away. Something about the whole thing reminded him of the Kalkaras.

"Take those two away." The officer then ordered, gesturing at Henrik and Runar. "This tent needs to be empty before any interrogations can begin."

* * *

Gilan was pretty sure that he should be dead right now. He almost would've preferred it if he _were_ dead at the moment. If he were dead, at least he wouldn't have to be dealing with an interrogation.

"Before we begin this questioning session, would you care to share anything about yourself?" His interrogator asked kindly, his voice infuriatingly calm and soothing. "It would make everything so much easier for the both of us. Believe it or not, I'd really rather not have to clean any of your blood off my hands. It's always such a hassle to completely wash out bloodstains and their stench."

The interrogator, a bearded man with an unexplainably unsettling face, looked way too much like a concerned doctor for someone who was currently twirling about an extremely sharp knife as he spoke. Gilan had already decided that he hated the guy. Considering the circumstances, this decision was probably inevitable, but _still._ He _hated_ the guy.

The young Ranger bared his teeth at the man now, in an expression that almost resembled a smile. It was the best thing he could manage at the moment, for despite his hatred, he needed to avoid antagonizing the interrogator so as to avoid getting himself stabbed by the aforementioned knife the man had in his possession.

"Well I'm sorry to say that I'm not a very interesting person." He responded, an innocent smile gracing his face. "I have nothing much to share about myself."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find something to say soon enough. I wouldn't worry too much about that, _Ranger Gilan Davidson_." Gilan tensed at the last words, even as he gritted his teeth even harder.

When the interrogator had first burst into the tent with a startling, "So we meet at last, Gilan Davidson!", the young Ranger had been completely unprepared for it. As a result, he had reacted in the worst possible way and had given himself away.

He should've- _would've_ if he'd had even the slightest warning of the interrogator's entrance- acted confused or perhaps not react much at all at the use of his name. But instead, he had flinched in surprise before glaring at the man, not even bothering to try and hide his recognition of his name.

"Who are you? What do you want?" He had then snapped in response, on a stupid and ultimately useless impulse. Not only were the chances of any of those questions being answered next to zero, but he had also outright confirmed his identity, destroying any slim chance he might have had to deny it.

The man had looked surprised, before laughing gleefully as Gilan's expression of anger melted into one of horror as he had realized what he had just done not a second later.

"So it really _is_ you! I hadn't expected _that_ strategy to actually work on a Ranger!" The interrogator had choked out between bouts of laughter. "And to think that _you're_ one of the big targets! Also, you look nothing like you do in our sketches, so I must say that this _does_ already make everything easier for the both of us!"

Since then, the bearded man seemed to have quickly adopted the hobby of rubbing Gilan's blunder in his face by constantly repeating his full name at every opportunity he had, with that hideous, gloating smirk on his face all the while.

To his own defense, Gilan had been disoriented at the time. Had he been more alert then, perhaps he could've better dealt with the situation. But now was not the time for excuses or regrets. Now, all he could do was deal with the consequences of his actions.

"Seeing as you have nothing to say, let's go ahead and start _helping_ you find something to say, shall we?" The man now said, his smile widening.

Gilan found that he had nothing to say in response to that.

Silently, he watched warily as the interrogator carefully put down his knife. As if reading the question in his mind, the man's honestly terrifying smile tilted into a smirk as he returned his full attention onto the young Ranger before him.

"As I've just told you, I really don't want your blood on my hands, so I'll avoid using my knife for now. Be aware that even I have my limits though, so let's try to avoid any bloodshed today and cooperate with each other instead. How does that sound?"

Gilan studied the man's dark gaze, saw the hint of a warning there, and nodded slowly, barely able to restrain his fear and resentment from showing on his face as he did so.

"That sounds good to me." He said in a falsely cheerful voice.

"Wonderful!" His interrogator exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "So glad to see that we're on the same page here. Let's first get the easy questions out of the way then. To confirm again, you are indeed _Gilan Davidson_ , Ranger of Meric Fief?"

That _was_ an easy question. There was no point in him denying his identity now, seeing as they had already suspected who he was before his capture and he had already confirmed it accidentally in his little blunder earlier. Chances were, this was simply a warm up question, a way to test what kind of prisoner he would be and how he reacted to different questions.

"That is who I am." The young Ranger agreed readily.

Much more awake and a bit calmer now, he then noticed a scratching sound coming from a dark corner of the tent. Turning his head in the direction of the sound, he saw the figure of a man standing there, holding a wooden board upon which a thick stack of papers was placed upon. The figure seemed to be writing something on the papers with a strange looking quill.

How long had that man been there? Gilan certainly hadn't noticed him _entering_ the room and he sincerely _hoped_ that he hadn't been there all along, watching him in his involuntary "sleep".

"Hey, eyes on me. I'm the one you're supposed to be talking to." The interrogator said, abruptly pulling the young Ranger out of his thoughts as he roughly grabbed a fistful of Gilan's hair and forcefully turned his head back to face him.

Gilan's heart traitorously skipped a beat as he got his first taste of just how strong the man before him was. He was quite sure that if he wanted to, the interrogator could crush his skull with just one hand, or at least do some _very_ heavy damage. Suddenly, it made sense why the man had put down the knife earlier. He didn't _need_ it.

Dark eyes glinted with satisfaction as they apparently saw some of the young Ranger's fear.

"I trust that I have your full attention now?" Gilan nodded quickly.

And so, the interrogation continued. He wasn't sure how long it went on, but it felt like _forever._

As the time passed, Gilan could feel himself beginning to zone out, losing focus and relaxing a bit despite his situation. _That_ however, was not a coincidence and he knew it. After all, he'd been taught this exact same interrogation strategy himself during his last year as an apprentice Ranger, when the _darker_ aspects of a Ranger's job, such as interrogation, were taught to him.

The interrogator was clearly _trying_ to bore him, to make him less cautious and loosen his tongue by making him talk more and more. And as if things weren't bad enough already, he wasn't quite sure how to combat this strategy either, for despite it all, he found that he was indeed beginning to have a hard time staying tense.

In his training, he'd only briefly been advised on how to cope with interrogation, for it wasn't exactly something that could simply be taught through anything other than experience. Additionally, Rangers were supposed to avoid capture in first place, making the need for dealing with interrogation a rare situation for them. Usually, they were the ones _doing_ the interrogating, rather than the other way around.

What little training he _had_ been given told him that his first priority was to escape or wait for rescue however, which meant that he had to stay relatively fit and healthy. In order to do that, he needed to avoid getting tortured _too_ badly. And in order for _that_ to happen, he had to answer the questions that were asked to him, within reason, which was exactly what he was doing right now.

This also leads him to his current dilemma, however.

He hadn't given away any vital information _yet_ , but he knew that it was only a matter of time. Any moment now, they would start asking the questions that they _really_ wanted the answers to and things could go one of two ways whenever they got to that point.

One possibility was that the strategy they were trying on him would actually work and the young Ranger really would slip up, giving up some vital information before he realized what had just happened and promptly shut up. Once he shut up, he had a pretty good feeling that torture would soon follow.

The other possibility was that he didn't slip up and they skipped straight to the torture instead.

Gilan wasn't sure which possibility was worse or if there was even that much of a significant difference between them anyway.

As the interrogation dragged on, he purposefully began to speak more slowly and listened to each question more intently. His main reason for doing this was because he wanted to delay being asked the questions he couldn't answer for as long as possible.

A second reason however, was because he figured it would be his best chance to combat the strategy and make sure that he didn't give up any information he didn't want to give. It also allowed him some time to think as he spoke, some time to brace himself for the question he was waiting for.

In his thoughts, he had imagined many different motivations his captors might've had in capturing him and a great variety of things that could be asked of him. And yet when the question finally came, he was completely caught off guard.

"Who was the boy that had been captured with you?"

The interrogator had asked the question casually enough, but as he processed the words, Gilan blinked and for the first time during the entire interrogation, hesitated.

It was a strange question, though he couldn't imagine why his captors would find such information important at all. Yet at the same time, it was the first question they'd given him that hadn't been about some trivial, personal information about himself. This one was directed at information on someone else. _Will,_ to be exact.

Still, maybe it was just another filler question.

"I'm not sure who you're talking about." He eventually said, hoping that his tone and the pause before his answer hadn't been too obviously suspicious.

"The boy." The interrogator repeated icily, dashing away Gilan's blind hopes of moving on from the subject of the apprentice Ranger. "The one you _called out to_ when you charged at our men? Surely you aren't going to waste both of our times by trying to tell me you don't know him?" As he said the words, the man's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

The question demanded a response, though Gilan wasn't sure what response to give as his mind scrambled for an answer.

He couldn't exactly try to avoid the question again, for that would only raise more suspicion and draw more attention to Will. But at the same time, he didn't like the shift in tone and attitude from the interrogator as he stared at the young Ranger now with a focus and intent previously not there before.

"He's just an apprentice." Gilan eventually stated, as casually as he could manage. "An apprentice I had been assigned to train for the afternoon along with a couple others." The interrogator's eyes narrowed even further at that. A silence grew within the tent.

"Just an apprentice?" The bearded man finally asked, just as Gilan thought the silence was about to begin suffocating him. "I'm having a hard time believing that. You seem oddly defensive of this _boy._ " Gilan scowled.

"As the Ranger assigned to train him for the afternoon, I was responsible for him. It was my duty to go in search of him and the other apprentices when we got separated. I shouldn't have allowed any of them to get captured." That was true enough. He shouldn't have allowed three apprentices, specifically the _only_ three apprentices currently present in the _entire Corps_ , to wander off into the forest on their own when another one was already missing. A wave of guilt began building up inside him and he tried to push it away. "But they're all really just apprentices. Whatever it is you want, just take it from me."

He knew that his last sentence was essentially a plea, but he was desperate to take the attention away from the apprentices and he had no idea what else he could say to do that. Unsurprisingly, the interrogator wasn't inclined to cooperate with the young Ranger's wishes, however.

"They're _just_ apprentices? Really?" The interrogator's tone was as pleasant as it had been throughout the interrogation so far, but at the same time, there was something decidedly different and _colder_ about him. "You seem awfully tense, _Gilan Davidson._ And you seem to care a great deal about these _apprentices_. Why is that?"

"They're my responsibility and fellow Rangers." Gilan repeated, unable to keep away a slight tremor from his voice as he spoke. "Of course I care. But I'm willing to cooperate with you, so there's no need to bring them into this."

"How generous of you. I'll _think_ about the offer."

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, Gilan immediately realized their implication and felt the weight of the sky suddenly crash down heavily upon his shoulders.

He'd just offered to give any information the interrogator might've wanted in exchange for the safety of the apprentice Rangers. And that offer had more or less been rejected on the spot. That could only mean that whoever it was that they had been captured by, they wanted something other than simple information. This something more personal.

"They're just apprentices." He repeated helplessly, not even bothering to hide the begging tone in his voice now. The interrogator only laughed heartily at that, as if the Ranger had just told him a hilarious joke.

"Begging already? How sweet, you really _do_ care! The others usually take a bit longer to get to this stage. Now I really must ask, what's got you so worried? Perhaps the boy is _your_ apprentice?"

Gilan stiffened at the last question and time suddenly seemed to come to a stop. Here it finally was. A question he couldn't answer, for there was no good one.

Admitting that Will was his apprentice was obviously a _terrible_ idea for countless reasons and was of course, immediately out of the question.

At the same time however, saying that Will _wasn't_ his apprentice would inevitably lead to their captors to try and figure out who the boy's mentor really was. And Halt was not only perhaps one of the most famous and skilled Ranger in the Corps, but also the one with the most enemies. Considering his recent revelation about their captors, Gilan was starting to think that Will being found out as Halt's apprentice could be just as bad, if not worse, as him being identified as his own apprentice.

In a lose-lose situation like this, the young Ranger found that there was really only one option for him to take. He had to keep the identity of Will as much a secret as he could, which meant that he needed to provide as little information about the boy as he could, to keep an element of uncertainty about him. To do that, all he could do was say nothing, for in saying nothing, he was providing no new information, no new hints.

So Gilan let the silence stretch on, very conscious the consequences hanging over him and glaring defiantly at the bearded man before him as he did so.

He watched with steadily rising apprehension as the interrogator, recognizing what his silence meant, began to twist his once falsely agreeable expression into something ugly. An icy cold glint crept into his dark eyes.

"So you have nothing to say, _Gilan Davidson_? What a shame. You've been so talkative up until now." A feeling of dread bubbled up from the pits of his stomach as the interrogator loomed over him, his broad shoulders stiffening and his posturing changing into something more threatening. "Of all the things you would bleed for, I must say, I didn't expect _this_ to be it."

The man reached into a pocket of his dark coat and dug out something. It wasn't a weapon however, but instead a small wooden block. The lack of an obvious weapon only made Gilan even more nervous, though.

"Sir, wait…" A quiet voice spoke up from behind him. Without even turning around, the petrified young Ranger could tell that it was from the man still standing in the shadowy corner of the tent, though this was the first time he'd actually spoken up. "Are you sure you want to use that?" A menacing smile stretched across the interrogator's face and he shrugged carelessly in response to the question.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." He said, raising the small wooden black close to Gilan's face.

The Ranger caught a glimpse of strange markings that made absolutely no sense to him carved into the wood, before a peculiar feeling struck his head. It felt as if there were a worm digging its way through his skull, sending a sensation that danced around the borders of uncomfortable and painful to his brain.

The world seemed to melt and split in half all at once as the feeling slowly but surely intensified into something much worse. Pain still wasn't quite the word to describe it, but it felt _wrong_ and he immediately wanted nothing more than to make it stop.

Petrified as he was however, he couldn't do anything but stare at the interrogator in confusion and horror. Unsurprisingly, he found no sympathy there and even the false friendliness was gone from the man's face now.

"Who is the boy, _Gilan Davidson_? What do you know about him?" Even if he wanted to answer, he couldn't have, for the world was already fading away from his sight. Colors swirled and danced before his eyes and a falling sensation gripped his guts.

As his awareness drifted away from him, he thought he heard a choked, desperate cry for help. Vaguely, he thought the source of that cry might have been himself.

* * *

Halt tore through the forest feverishly, taking only a second to note that it was noon already. The thought occurred to him that he should probably be exhausted by now, but a mild case of panic did wonders for his awareness of his own physical state.

He's been combing through the entire forest surrounding the Gathering Grounds since last night, after Peter had finally managed to fumble his way through an explanation of what had happened.

According to the other Ranger, he had encountered someone dressed as a fellow Ranger who had attacked him without any explanation. He had struggled to barely fight off his opponent before he managed to get away and lose his attacker. Then immediately afterwards, he'd attempted to search for the two apprentices along with Will and Gilan, who were all supposedly still in the forest, in case they were in any trouble as well. Long after the moon had risen in the sky, Peter had found nothing and realized that something had probably gone terribly wrong. He then finally decided to get back to the Gathering to report on the situation and get back up.

Halt didn't like this explanation of events or the implications of it.

He also knew that in situations like this, time was of the essence. So, he had seen no point in waiting around for all the other Rangers to make their way to the command tent, deciding to instead go ahead and start the search by himself.

Besides, he had needed keep himself busy or he might have just given into the urge to punch his fellow Ranger in the face for losing his apprentices, even if he knew that Gilan was also a fully fledged Ranger and that the current situation wasn't truly Peter's fault.

Crowley had tried to stop him from leaving, protesting with that infuriatingly reasonable tone of his, despite Halt's perfectly reasonable justifications for going off on his own. In hindsight, he supposed it might've been a bit reckless, but considering that he _still_ hadn't found so much as a clue to his apprentices' location, he wasn't particularly inclined to feel very sorry for his actions at the moment.

Last night, Peter had hurriedly directed him to the area where their group had supposedly split up the evening before and Halt had immediately gone after the trail of the three apprentice Rangers, since they were the most vulnerable group and the most likely ones to need help. The trail only lasted so long however, before it was abruptly cut off for seemingly no apparent reason.

He'd looked around the area in vain for a solid five minutes before confirming that there were absolutely no clues as to where the apprentices might've gone after the end of the trail or what might have happened to them. It was as if they had simply _vanished_. With no other option, he had nothing to do other than reluctantly going back the way he came, with an uncomfortable churning sensation swirling around in his stomach as he went.

 _What had happened_? The question stubbornly hung around the back of his mind, refusing to go unanswered. But the tracks were unlike anything he'd ever seen before, making it difficult for him to even begin to _guess_ at why the trail had ended like it did.

Whatever it was, it certainly hadn't done anything to help calm him and his imagination. Where had the apprentices gone? How was he going to find them with his only lead resulting in a dead end? Were the apprentices even _alive?_ From his own experience, he was disturbingly aware of the fact that people who vanished were rarely ever found again, let alone found alive. Was _Will…_

Halt quickly tore himself away from his thoughts and picked up his pace. If he stopped and thought too hard on this, he knew that he'd become too distracted to get any work done. And with four other members of the Corps, two of them being his own apprentices, very possibly on the line, he couldn't afford to let that happen.

Eventually, he finally made his way back to the place where Peter had said the group of Rangers had split up the day before. Without a moment's hesitation, he immediately went towards the direction where Peter had claimed Gilan had gone in.

It was a small relief for Halt to find that his former apprentice's tracks turned out to be thankfully easy enough to find and follow. Clearly, the young Ranger had seen no point in trying to hide his trail.

Only a short minute after he began going after the tracks had passed however, when a problem became very apparent to the grizzled old Ranger. It would be a secret he would take with him to his grave, but Halt was finding that he wasn't following Gilan's tracks as quickly as he could be. He tried to fight against it, but his feet refused to go faster than their current pace. It felt as if he were walking through thick mud.

As much as he would've liked to blame his fatigue and exhaustion catching up to him, Halt knew this was mostly due to fear, for the last thing he wanted was to follow a trail that led to yet another dead end. Not only would that be unsettling and a waste of a lot of his time, but he also knew that this was his last lead. If Gilan's tracks also disappeared, then he would officially have absolutely no clue as to what had happened to his apprentices and where they could be.

The forest suddenly felt much too quiet.

Quiet. He hadn't had much of that after taking Will on as his apprentice. The simple thought emphasized to Halt the boy's absence more intensely than ever. The feeling almost felt as if he were _missing_ his apprentice, both him and Gilan, but that couldn't be it because they _weren't_ missing and he _would_ find them very soon anyway.

The grizzled old Ranger finally managed to pick up his pace slightly.

A few long minutes passed before he finally came to a stop. The trail thankfully didn't ended like that of the three apprentices and disappear. However, as he observed the forest ground around where Gilan had stopped walking, he noted with a steadily growing dread that there _had_ been a struggle, most likely a fight of some sort. If he had to guess, he would assume that the opponent was related to Peter's attacker.

The Ranger looked around quickly for any indication of what had happened after the fight, seeing as Gilan clearly hadn't returned to the Gathering Grounds afterwards. He'd seen no signs of blood anywhere, so he was sure that his former apprentice _had_ to still be alive somewhere, but where had he gone?

Another set of footprints from a few meters away caught his eyes. Halt practically ran over to it to inspect it. Immediately, he could tell that it was way too small to Gilan's and it therefore had to be that of the young Ranger's attacker. It looked like they had dug their heels deeply into the forest ground, but something about it wasn't quite adding up.

The footprints had caught his attention because they had been nowhere near any of the footsteps of the fight that he assumed had taken place meters away. Either the attacker had jumped an impossibly long distance before running or… _Or what?_

Halt scowled. This was getting him nowhere. Nothing was making sense and the more he tried to look into what had happened, the more he thought about it, the less he knew.

He glared at the tracks of the attacker that led deeper into the forest after the initial, strange footprints. His heart lifted slightly as he noticed that Gilan's footsteps also going into the same direction, likely in pursuit of the attacker after they had run off. At least it appeared that his former apprentice hadn't been captured or worse.

Since his thoughts were getting him nowhere and the site of the apparent fight was not immediately useful or important, Halt decided to move on to follow the tracks before him.

As he walked, he carefully observed the forest surrounding him and the trail, and began to notice some strange stains scattered around the area. They almost looked like bloodstains, but the color was all wrong and they were too bright and oddly shiny under glare of the hot sun hanging above the forest at the moment.

As he came across a particularly large, almost puddle of the substance, Halt couldn't help but take a closer look. Briefly looking around, he found a small twig and picked it up to poke at the stain, which was splattered against a rather large tree trunk. He found that it was very apparently not dry, for when he pulled the twig back, it was covered with the sticky, almost slimy substance.

Unsettled, Halt quickly dropped the twig and stood up abruptly. He wasting his time. Strange as this was, his first priority was still to find his apprentices. Still, he would have to come back and inspect this later to figure out what it was. Whatever it was, he was quite sure it wasn't natural.

Continuing to follow the tracks, he eventually reached a point where the tracks had split. Halt frowned, studying the footprints before him. For some reason, his former apprentice had suddenly gone the exact opposite direction from his attacker. _Why?_ And which direction should he go now?

The answer seemed obvious enough. Since he was searching for his former apprentice, he should obviously follow Gilan's trail. But a sixth sense told him otherwise. Even from quite a distance away, he could see the prominent gleaming of the strange substance staining the forest around the tracks of the attacker's, going the other direction.

Yesterday, he hadn't paid enough attention to his instinct that had told him something was off about the forest of the Gathering Grounds. Now here he was, with full proof that his instincts had been right all along, as irrational as it had seemed at the time. He won't make the same mistake twice.

Determinedly, the Ranger turned and went to follow the strange attacker's trail.

As he went, Halt noticed that there were more and more stains of the strange substance, in increasingly greater sizes and frequency. He could've sworn that they were also having an effect on the temperature of the surrounding forest, for he felt a chill in the air despite the sun still at its peak in the sky.

The tracks seemed to go one forever, much farther than what any man should've been able to go from the previous evening to the present. Halt thought that he should have caught up with the attacker or have reached the end of the trail by now.

He hadn't however, and his stomach was practically gnawing at itself in the meantime, painfully reminding him that he hadn't had anything to eat since the previous night and it was currently what he would usually call lunch time, though he tried to ignore it all.

He also hadn't had anything to drink since yesterday and in his rush to begin looking for his apprentices, he hadn't brought along a water bottle. Now, he was facing the consequences of his actions, as his parched, dry throat ached for some water. The sun seemed to glare down on him and even with the chill, he still found himself sweating and losing more water to the heat.

Halt's vision wavered and he was forced to face the fact that he might soon be dealing with dehydration. He was seriously starting to consider heading back to the Gathering Grounds for now.

It wasn't like these tracks were going to suddenly _disappear_. The wise thing to do would be to get back to the Gathering Grounds to get some water and food before returning to his hunt, possibly with back up. After all, he wouldn't be able help anyone if he fainted from exhaustion, hunger, and/or dehydration.

Still, perhaps foolishly, he continued on. _Just for a few more minutes._ He told himself. Then he would turn around and go back.

As it turned out, a few more minutes was all he needed to reach the end of the tracks and the Ranger stopped as he found himself confronting a truly unsettling sight.

The figure of a man dressed as a Ranger sat, hunched over in the distance. Even from where he stood, Halt could hear his heavy, labored breathing. Slowly and cautiously, he quietly reached for his saxe knife, cursing himself for leaving his his bow and arrow back at the Gathering Grounds as well. He had already deduced that this was either Peter's attacker or at least an ally of the attacker. Whoever he was, he was also clearly the opponent Gilan had encountered.

Halt's movements must have somehow caught the man's attentions, for his head quickly came up to look at the grizzled Ranger a moment later. Halt's eyes widened slightly in bewilderment as he found a pair of pure black eyes staring into his own. Was he hallucinating? Surely he wasn't _that_ tired or dehydrated, was he?

"Stay away…" The man said in a voice so hollow and devoid of emotion that Halt questioned whether or not it had truly come from a human. "Stay back…"

Halt tightened his grip on his weapon. "Who are-"

"You're a Ranger." The man suddenly said, cutting off the Ranger's question. Halt said nothing and simply continued to stare at the man warily. There had been a hint of fear and something else he couldn't identify in the otherwise monotonous voice just now. A few seconds passed. "You're a _Ranger._ "

Halt wasn't sure if he should respond to the statement, or what he would even say if he did try to respond. The man before him appeared tense and he couldn't help but feel as if something was about to happen. So, he watched and waited.

Then the screaming started, high pitched and yet somehow still hollow and devoid of something.

"Ranger! RANGER! _RANGER!_ " Over and over again, the man screamed the word as if it was being torn from his throat. He had stood up now on wobbly legs, leaning up against a tree for support as he continued his inhuman screeches.

Halt could now see the wound in the man's torso, stained with the strange substance he'd seen littering the forest. The wound itself was bubbling and dripping, a terrible sight even for an experienced Ranger like Halt.

As the screams continued still, all the Ranger could do for a moment was stare with confusion and a slight sense of horror.

* * *

 **A/N: I was actually hoping to not leave this chapter on a cliffhanger but then I looked at the word count for this chapter and I knew I had to end it soon... As always, any criticism would be greatly appreciated and thank you to everybody who gave feedback for me last chapter! Quick note, next chapter, we finally get to the scene containing the quote/excerpt from the summary. When I first started this, I hadn't expected it to take this long to get to that** **excerpt, but it is what it is. Also, again, many thanks to a311243549 for being my awesome beta reader for this fic! Really made the editing process much better and more effective.**

 **Now as for responses, I'm going to respond to every review/question that I feel needs a response or address anything that I see appear in multiple reviews from now on, instead of responding to each individual. I want to be clear and emphasize that this _doesn't_ mean I don't appreciate every review, but I don't think anybody wants or needs a long list of me saying "thanks for reading and reviewing" among other things along that line to every individual reviewer and it gets pretty tedious for me as well. I also feel like saying basically "thanks" to every reviewer eventually loses meaning. I'm still going to list all you awesome reviewers though, just to let you know that I read (and sometimes reread, lol) every review and appreciate them! Now, for Q and A's:**

 **Q: Have you abandoned this fic?**

 **A: I address this first because the question has been brought up in more then one review. So, yeah, definitely not. The interrogation scene gave me major writers block and I'm pretty sure I've rewritten that scene so many times that I have enough deleted content to make a chapter all on its own. That's the biggest reason. Also life gets busy and I might disappear for a month or two, especially now with school starting again, so be aware of that :P**

 **Q: Why the cliffhanger?!**

 **A: I don't know why I keep leaving these chapters on cliffhangers! I guess I always feel like I've come to a natural stopping point during a cliffhanger.** **Bright side to that is that the cliffhangers also seem to help me avoid writer's block whenever I move onto the next chapter. I'll try to use less cliffhangers though, cause I know they can get tiring if overused.**

 **Thank you to all you awesome reviewers!: M.T, Lilly-daughter of Radolso, Dragonslover98, Gerbilfriend, Snowy Analia, Blue-Inventations, Guest(s?), Ranger-of-the-shadows, ThePhoenixGhirl, Ned, Ranger River**

 **So yea! If you ever have any questions, just leave a review and I'll have a section at the end of the next chapter answering them. I'm planning after next chapter to have monthly updates since school's about to start and I'm going to be very busy, just a heads up. I'll try to have two updates a month when I can manage, but in the end, this is supposed to be fun and I really don't want to burn myself out on this story, since I really want to finish it for myself as well. So I'll try to stick with once a month updates for practice disciplining myself in writing but also as a manageable rule. I'll try to give a heads up if I plan on disappearing.**

 **Preview for the next chapter: Everyone's favorite villain finally enters the scene, Gilan gets a good scare, and Halt gets into a very weird fight. Also we finally get to that scene from the summary (I guess that's a small peek into the next chapter?).**


	5. Chapter 5: Dark Eyes

**A/N: Sooo... I'm back. This took _just a bit_ longer than the two weeks I'd initially anticipated it taking... In all seriousness though, I apologize for the long wait. To any reader still around to read this, thank you for your patience (not that you really have a choice, but still). This school year has been a busy one to say the least and I won't bore you with any details, but that's why this took so long in case anybody cares to know. Again, this story isn't abandoned. It's just taking a LONG time to update due to my insane schedule. I won't promise another update any time soon, but hopefully there will be one before the summer? Who knows.**

 **I actually already have the next chapter mostly written because it was supposed to be part of this chapter. Then I noticed my word count sitting at over 14,000 words and decided to just cut it in half. I think any reader would get tired of trying to dig through that many words, so I split it up to make everything a bit easier to digest.** **I'd really wanted to clean up this mess of a chapter and it's other half as I felt like I was taking too long to get to the point and I really wanted to finally get to the Morgarath scene, but I suppose it just wasn't meant to be and I couldn't bring myself to start over on the entire chapter again. A lot of this chapter is build up for the next one for this reason, which I guess at least means next chapter will be a much more exciting and plot progressing one.**

 **Forgive me for any mistakes, but I was kind of sick of editing this chapter so I decided to just post it as is. I'm extremely concerned with my pacing for this one, so any feedback on that would be great. As always, criticism would be greatly appreciated and encouraged. Without further ado, let the story (finally) continue!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own any of this as John Flanagan is the amazing mind behind this awesome series.**

Chapter 5: Dark Eyes

 _Gilan had been surprised when Halt showed up to his doorsteps in the middle of the night with a grim expression darkening his face. Or perhaps that grim expression had just been Halt being his usual, grouchy self. One could never really be sure with the grizzled, old Ranger._

" _Whenever you're done gaping at me, I'd like to be invited in sometime before sunrise." His former mentor drawled, his face morphing into a scowl as a solid minute of Gilan staring at him passed._

" _Hello, Gilan." An unusually exhausted young voice piped up from behind Halt. "Halt probably won't bother to say this, but we're sorry to have to bother you so late. We just-" The voice was cut off by a yawn before it could finish the rest of the sentence. "We have some urgent business to discuss with you or something…"_

 _Gilan blinked. He'd been so distracted by Halt's unexpected appearance that he hadn't even noticed Will's presence behind his former mentor. Admittedly, the apprentice was rather well hidden in the shadows of the night, with his green and gray cloak helping him blend in, but it still occurred to Gilan that this would be the second time Will managed to catch him by surprise. He didn't see any particular reason why he should make this fact known to either the young apprentice or his mentor however, so he quickly tried to cover up his shock._

" _It's fine. I wasn't asleep anyway seeing as I'm currently buried under a mountain of paperwork that the_ generous _baroness of this fief gave me the privilege of helping her sort through." He said with a wry grin. "Besides, I'm sure that whatever this is, it was all Halt's idea, so no need for_ you _to apologize, Will." Halt rolled his eyes as he and Will stepped into the cabin._

 _For a moment, the older Ranger looked prepared to make an undoubtedly dry retort as a part of their usual banter, but to Gilan's surprise, his face quickly grew serious once more. The younger Ranger frowned. It appeared that there really was an urgent matter._

 _Another yawn, this one much louder and lengthier than the one before it, sounded from Will, promptly turning Gilan's attention towards the apprentice. He raised an eyebrow at what he saw._

 _Dark bags hung heavily under Will's eyes, his clothes were rumpled and filthy presumably from all the riding he'd probably just done, and his entire posture and appearance were practically screaming exhaustion. On top of that, the apprentice Ranger appeared to be swaying rather extremely from where he stood._

" _How about I get you to a guest room before you fall over, Will?" Gilan said with some measure of sympathy._

" _No-" Another lengthy, monstrous yawn. "No need..." Both Rangers raised an eyebrow at that._

" _I see," Gilan said, sounding almost convinced, though the amused look in his eyes indicated otherwise. Halt patted his apprentice on the back, prompting him to move forward._

" _Gilan's right. You should get some rest, Will. It's been a long night and we can fill you in on everything tomorrow. You'll probably fall asleep in the middle of any conversation with the state that you're in now." Halt's gruff voice was slightly softer than usual as he urged his young apprentice to bed. Will sighed and seemed to finally accept his fate. Gilan grinned, reminded of all the times he'd found himself in the exact same position as Will during his own apprenticeship._

 _He then proceeded to herd the apprentice into the nearest guest room, chuckling as the boy immediately fell into the bed he'd been lead to in a boneless flop as soon as he got close enough to do so. Not ten seconds passed before he already appeared to be well on his way to sleep. Gilan noted that he was evidently too exhausted to even grab the soft blankets right beside him on the bed to place over himself._

 _Feeling slightly ridiculous and mostly amused, he decided to not bother the exhausted apprentice and instead tucked the blankets over Will's shoulders himself. "Good night, Will." He said softly in a lighthearted tone, trying to ignore the millions of questions and concerns broiling in the back of his mind._

 _Will, however, was already fast asleep and didn't even twitch in response. Something about the extent of the boy's exhaustion clashing with his peaceful, sleeping expression both alarmed and reassured the young Ranger at the same time._

 _He straightened and resolutely turned to leave the room then. Halt was likely waiting outside to give him an explanation for his sudden appearance, and with both the older Ranger and Will's strange behavior, Gilan was_ very _curious as to what had happened._

 _When he got back to his living room, he wasn't surprised to see that Halt had already made himself at home with a mug of piping hot coffee as he sat in Gilan's small dining room located in the corner of the living room (really, it wasn't anything more than a collection of two chairs and a tiny table)._

" _Where'd you get this coffee? It tastes like_ tea _. Hardly deserves the title coffee if you ask me." Halt opined with a sour expression as soon as he caught sight of Gilan._

" _You always say that, and yet you keep raiding my coffee supply whenever you come here. You know you're welcome to not drink it if you hate it so much." Gilan replied with mock offense. "In fact, I don't recall ever granting you access to_ my _supply of coffee anyway."_

" _You should be thanking me for helping you get rid of this stuff and begging for me to drink more of it." Halt retorted, even as he took another huge swig of the offending beverage. "Then, perhaps you can finally get a better supply of coffee." The younger Ranger shook his head with some amusement._

" _And I suppose you have something better than my apparently awful coffee?"_

" _You_ know _I do." Halt said, though he deftly avoided Gilan's hands as they reached to confiscate the mug of coffee from his grasp. Gilan decided to not fight for it and instead headed for the kitchen in the room right next door, before returning with his own cup of coffee a few minutes later._

" _So what brings you and Will here, Halt? Especially at this hour in the middle of the night." Gilan asked in a casual, conversational tone, though he watched Halt with some concern as he tried to assess his mentor's state of mind._

 _Halt, likely noticing this, sighed softly and set down his coffee with a_ thunk _before he began to explain._

 _"Well, a few days ago, Crowley assigned me to an…_ urgent mission _of sorts. And I was wondering if I could leave Will here with you for a while."_

 _It was an innocent enough of a request, even if it was a bit unusual, until Gilan considered the fact that Will had been brought along on a hunt after the_ Kalkaras _just a short time ago. Just what kind of mission was his old mentor about to embark on that he couldn't bring his apprentice along on?_

 _Gilan's eyes narrowed. Halt was holding something back and whatever it was, it couldn't be anything good. "Why? And what exactly is this mission of yours?" He asked, not bothering to try and cover up his concern or suspicions._

 _Halt's eyes darkened at the simple questions, which didn't do anything to calm Gilan's nerves. The young Ranger suddenly had a sneaking suspicion then, that he was about to be in for a long night._

* * *

 _Four months later…_

It was only his long years of experience and skills as a Ranger that saved Halt from the strange man's first attack.

One moment, he had been hunched over by a tree, shrieking about Rangers as if he were about to be dragged into the depths of hell, then in another moment, he seemed to materialize in front of Halt, swinging a lengthy knife at the Ranger in a wild panic.

Halt was sure that he hadn't seen the man move towards him and had no idea how he had crossed the distance between them so quickly. Still, even as shock numbed his systems, he found himself instinctively dodging the blows sent his way.

After a couple seconds of continued, stunned inaction, the Ranger then recovered and quickly drew out his own knives. Without thinking, he began to fight back with equal ferocity as his opponent, not even bothering to heed the voice in his mind that told him that as a possible lead to his apprentices, he needed to keep this man alive. Despite this, the fight proved to be more difficult than Halt would've ever have been able to anticipate.

The intensity and suddenness of the attack had thrown him off balance and his control of the situation had spun away from him with the swiftness of a breeze, putting him in a position he wasn't used to being in. The man wasn't the most skilled opponent he had ever faced, but his raw strength was almost unreal, all making for a dangerous combination for the Ranger.

As blow after blow struck Halt's defense, he felt his entire body being jarred by the blocked attacks. He only managed to keep up his defense thanks to the sheer force of his will and a surge of adrenaline racing through his veins.

The Ranger couldn't help but wonder how his opponent could deliver such strong blows without breaking his own arm, for the man didn't appear to be the strongest looking one Halt had ever seen either, even if he did know that appearances could be deceiving-

A rusty blade shot through his defenses, cutting his upper arm. As Halt felt the relatively unfamiliar feeling of blood running down his skin and wetting his clothes, he recognized that he'd been distracted. He didn't feel much pain from his wound at the moment, but he knew that he would most certainly be feeling it later.

 _If there was a later._

Immediately, the Ranger blocked out all unnecessary thoughts and focused on the other man with more intensity than ever before. Now was _not_ the time to get distracted.

Regaining his senses, he managed to block his opponent's follow-up attack, which he instinctively recognized to have been aimed at his neck. He felt his wounded arm scream at the continued agitation he was putting it through, but he decided could handle that pain just fine considering that his life was on the line.

As they fought on, Halt was pleased to find that despite his strength, his opponent's moves were growing progressively sloppier and more reckless. Blocking another blow, the Ranger finally began making good progress towards ending the fight and he found himself considering the man before him with cold, calculating eyes. He briefly wondered if he should bother keeping him alive.

With the thick black substance staining half the man's entire torso and dripping from his mouth, much like blood, he felt that his opponent didn't have long anyway. Halt scowled fiercely at that thought though.

 _His apprentices…_ He _had_ to find them and unfortunately, this man was ultimately the best lead he had.

As an opening presented itself, Halt finally got the opportunity he'd been waiting for to end the fight and struck like a viper, lunging forward and then slamming the hilt of his knife into the side of his opponent's head. He watched with a cold sense of satisfaction as his opponent stumbled away, with a new river of black goo, which Halt now suspected to be his blood, washing down his face.

Following up his attack, the Ranger then shot out an arm and grabbed the other man to force him on his knees, with a knife pointed threateningly at his neck. Everything then seemed to come to a screeching halt.

For a moment, it appeared as if the fight had finally ended with the sudden stillness. Halt's harsh breaths were loud in his own ears as they came in gasps and his mind slowly began to catch up with his body to process all that had just happened. Then, wasting no time, he attempted to begin demanding information from his now-captive opponent.

"Who are y-" Unfortunately, contrary to what he had believed, his opponent was _not_ at his mercy or anywhere close to being defeated, and the man twisted his head to snarl at Halt before he could even get a single sentence out.

"I'm not telling you anything, _Ranger_!" A malicious gleam then entered the pitch black eyes of the man, and that was all the warning Halt had before it happened.

He felt his gut twist as the world suddenly seemed to flip on its side. A numbness shot up his arms and quickly spread to the rest of his body. An odd sensation of falling apart blossomed in his chest. He felt his entire body go limp as he inevitably collapsed.

Bright lights flashing in his eyes, the forest surrounding Halt seemed to slowly vanish. He wanted to pass out, but gritting his teeth, he determinedly kept his eyes open as wide as as he could, ready to face whatever was coming next in this strange battle he found himself locked in.

 _No_ amount of determination or calm could've prepared him for what happened next, however, when he suddenly found himself falling through space.

An uncharacteristic, strangled scream of surprise and terror managed to tear its way out of the Ranger's throat, even as he managed to turn his head to watch the surface of what appeared to be the side a cliff rushing past him as he fell.

A strangely calm part of Halt that wasn't consumed by mindless terror wondered if he was possibly hallucinating, but the all too real ground of jagged rocks below was _very definitely_ rising up to meet him as he continued falling still.

* * *

Gilan woke up to the sound of shouting voices.

"You fool! Do you have _any_ idea what the General would've done to us if he died?" The first voice was unfamiliar, but the next one he recognized distantly as that of his interrogator's.

"I thought it worth the risk! You think he would've been anymore pleased to hear that our information on the Rangers was incomplete? We _needed_ some information on that boy."

It occurred to Gilan that vindictively _pleased_ at the fear and defensiveness in his interrogator's voice wasn't exactly the appropriate emotion he should be feeling at the moment, but his head was _killing_ him at the moment and he couldn't bring himself to particularly care as he listened in on the conversation happening above from where he was collapsed.

"Did we now? And _what_ was it that you found in your little trip into the Ranger's mind again?"

Gilan sincerely hoped that "the Ranger" being discussed wasn't him. The idea that these people had somehow messed around with his mind was not a particularly pleasant one, though logic and his throbbing, burning headache told their own story.

"Well, we at least have the boy's name now."

"Ah, yes. A _name._ What did you tell me it was? Will?"

"Yes and-"

" _And_ you didn't even get his last name out of your stupid little stunt. All we have is the first name of a likely insignificant _apprentice_ Ranger that we had already known. Maybe not even that! Perhaps that's just a nickname for all we even know!"

"It's better than _nothing_. The Ranger was fully prepared to go through _torture_ to keep the kid's identity a secret! We weren't exactly going to get any information out of him anytime soon."

"Couldn't you have least tried to get more information out of him before pulling out since you were taking a dive into his mind anyway?"

"I would've, but I'm telling you, something is _off_ with his mind. It's as if something's already tampered with it before." A heavy sigh punctuated the air then.

"This all seems to be more trouble than it's worth. I say we just kill the kid and be done with it. It'll be one less potential threat in the future and chances are, Lord Morgarath will probably murder him eventually if he doesn't manage to escape anyway, so either way, the end result is-" There was an abrupt pause as Gilan couldn't help but tense at what he heard.

"He's awake."

The Ranger mentally cursed as he realized that he'd just exposed himself. _Again._ Maybe if he kept his eyes shut and tried to continue his act, his captors would-

"Open your eyes, _Ranger_. We know that you're awake." A voice snapped as a pointy boot dug itself into his stomach. Gilan managed to hold back a gasp of pain as he slowly slid his eyes open. Dread bubbled up inside him as two pairs of cold eyes stared back at him, one belonging to his interrogator and the other belonging to a tall man with strange eyes that were partially covered in pitch black.

The same pitch black that he'd seen in the eyes of the strange imposter Rangers that had captured him in the first place.

Perhaps noticing his fear and confusion, his interrogator smirked.

"Save your fear, little Ranger. You'll need it later. Colonel Meldon here has contacted our lord and he'll be here, _just to visit you_ , in a short while. In the meantime, I can assure you that you need not fear for any harm to you coming from us. At least, not for now."

"You speak too freely with the prisoner." The interrogator's tall companion interrupted coldly before he could say anything more. Gilan however, hardly heard him.

 _Our lord._ There wasn't a thread of doubt in Gilan's mind that the title was referring to Morgarath. These people, his captors, _who knew his identity as both a Ranger and a former apprentice of Halt's_ , worked for _Morgarath_.

To his credit, even as he felt his blood slowly freeze in his veins, Gilan's face remained deceptively calm. How had _Morgarath_ suddenly get involved in all this? He couldn't help but belatedly wonder. And why was he coming specifically to visit _him_?

There wasn't much that could've pulled him away from his efforts to come to terms with his impending meeting with Morgarath, but the sudden sounds of running footsteps and shouts of alarm certainly did the trick.

As the sounds from outside came up suddenly and quickly increased in volume and pitch with frightening speed, a moment passed as the two men standing above him shared a quick, startled glance. Then, without another word, his interrogator ran out of the room to join the commotion outside, leaving him alone with yet another stranger.

The tall man's discolored eyes seemed to go right through the Ranger as he stared down at him then, but an unexpected and concerning pitying look made itself apparent for a moment. Gilan wondered what warranted such a look from his captor.

* * *

When his interrogation had been cut short before it had ever really began due to some unknown commotion outside, it hadn't been all that hard for Will to sneak out of his essentially unguarded prison tent. It also hadn't been difficult for him to find the other apprentices, who'd simply been relocated to the nearest tent right next to his own. Climbing and disappearing unnoticed into the forest surrounding the clearing where their captors had set up their camp had been easy enough as well.

With all that going for him and his fellow apprentices, they should've been able to escape with relative ease right then and there. In fact, they probably _would've_ been able to do so if it hadn't been for the power of their own curiosity and stupidity. Or perhaps more accurately, if it hadn't been for the power of _Will's_ curiosity and stupidity.

" _What do you think you're doing?_ " Henrik hissed as Will began scaling down the tree he'd been hiding in. "Get back here!" For an apprentice Ranger, Will personally thought that Henrik was _really_ bad at whispering quietly.

" _No._ We can't just leave Alex and Gilan back there." He called back as discreetly and calmly as he could. "And since we're relatively safe and free now, there should be no harm in me going back down there to at least take a look around and see what their situation is before we make a run for it."

He knew that what he was doing was incredibly stupid and even selfish to some extent, for he _was_ basically putting his fellow escapees at risk just to satisfy his own conscience's demands for him to at least try and help the other Rangers they'd left behind. However, he didn't feel bad enough about it to stop himself from doing what he was about to do, though as he slowly slid down the tree, some inconvenient memories decided that now would be a good time to resurface to the forefront of his mind.

Suddenly, he was hearing the lecture Halt had given to him a few months ago, in which his mentor had explained to him after a close call that, should he ever find himself captured, his first priority as a Ranger should be to escape at any and all costs. And with that memory came another, more recent one, that had unsurprisingly proven Halt's words to be true.

Abruptly, Will shook off the wave of nervousness that inevitably accompanied the sudden memories. What he was doing now was different from those memories. He had a good reason to do this.

Or so he told himself, at least.

He winced at the sound of leaves crunching beneath his feet as he finally reached the bottom of the tree. Then, glancing up, another pang of guilt hit him when he saw his fellow apprentices reluctantly beginning to make their way down their own trees to come after him. Runar, whom they'd quickly discovered did _not_ have a good head for heights looked as if he'd seen a ghost and was about as pale as one as well, while Henrik somehow appeared noticeably angrier than he usually did.

"You guys can just stay here and wait for me. Or just go on ahead without me." Will called up to them as loudly as he dared to. "There's no need for all of us to go back there and it's probably safer if I go alone anyway. You know, 'one riot, one Ranger' and all that."

Henrik looked prepared to protest before he glanced back at their captor's camp and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Very well. But you _better_ return." He sneered, as he abruptly began to move back up his tree instead, with much more enthusiasm than he had going down. "We'll wait here for you in the meantime, but if you're not back by sunset, we're ditching you." Runar's knuckles were bone white as he clung to his tree, but he managed to nod down at Will in agreement with Henrik's plan.

Satisfied with the situation, Will then briefly waved a farewell to them before he proceeded to slowly approach the camp he'd just escaped alone. Despite his determination, the apprentice Ranger couldn't help but question every step he made.

He was missing his cloak, so he knew that he'd be slightly easier to spot than he was used to being. This meant slow progress as he was forced to go at the pace of a drunken snail in an attempt to minimize the chances of someone spotting any quick movements of his. Still, his gruellingly slow speed was rather frustrating as he saw the people in his captor's camp continuing to run past him before disappearing into some distant part of the forest.

From his view up in his tree, Will had already seen the many people running towards some particular area in the woods and he was currently determined to get a closer look at what was going on, to see what had caused the commotion that allowed for his escape in the first place. Whatever it was, it seemed to be important and therefore, it was also likely something useful to have more information on for possible future uses.

He hadn't considered the possibility of not being able to keep up with his captors, however.

If he stopped to think about it too much, the whole situation was actually rather unsettling too. There hadn't been any obvious disturbances he'd noticed that would warrant such a large swarm of people going into a panicked race into some seemingly random area within the forest. The fact that Will didn't see anything to be shocked or panicked about was concerning in it of itself, for that meant that he was oblivious and therefore vulnerable to whatever it was that had alarmed all other people in the camp so much. And as an apprentice Ranger, there was _nothing_ that bothered him more than something strange that he knew nothing about.

Still, Will pushed aside any fear in his mind and continued on in the direction that he'd seen all the people heading in with a single-minded focus. Fear could only distract him now or push him into making a mistake which could very well turn out to be fatal for him as he was now.

Somehow, that thought did little to help him ignore his growing dread.

When he finally got close enough to his destination to hear soft murmuring of people gathered in the distance, the apprentice Ranger picked up his pace slightly. This was in part due to an inevitable surge of excitement, but it was also in part because he knew that the murmurings would be able to help cover any minor sounds he might accidentally make, allowing him to move faster.

With his approach, it soon became apparent to Will that after entering the forest, the swarm of people had all decided to split up for some reason. For example, the group of around ten people he currently found himself nearing stood in a small, tight circle, as they all seemed to stare at something in the center of their ring of people, while in the deep shadows of the forest, he could see yet another similar group in the distance doing the exact same thing.

He stopped as he got as close to the nearest group of people as he dared to. From his current distance, Will could just barely make out the words spoken by low, hushed voices, but that was enough for him. Little of what he heard made sense to him due to a lack his context for the words anyway, so he was content to simply watch and wait to see what was going to happen, rather than risk going any closer in an attempt to catch some bits of conversations that may or may not be useful to him.

He wasn't been sure what he'd been expecting to happen, but he'd know that _something_ was coming since there was no other logical reason as to why so many people had rushed into the woods to stand in circles. However, when the ground beneath him began shaking so violently that even the trees around him shook and bent way too much for comfort, it occurred to Will to he might've just stumbled into something he wasn't quite equipped to deal with.

He choked down a cry of alarm, clamping his mouth shut and narrowly avoiding biting off his own tongue as he did.

Leaves were violently dislodged from their branches, falling down around him as a terrible rumbling sound grew in the air alongside the creaking and groaning of the trees around him. His teeth were rattling inside his skull, no matter how hard he tried to clench his jaws and it seemed for a moment as if the world had suddenly decided to end by splitting in half in this very forest.

Instinctively, Will reached out for some support to steady himself as he inevitably fell over and ended up essentially hugging the bush he was currently hiding behind. Sharp branches dug and poked into his skin painfully but he barely registered the pain as he then squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to gather the pieces of his abruptly shattered composure caused by the sudden _quaking_ of the world.

When the apprentice finally managed to recollect enough of his wits, he dared to peek open his eyes once more, though the shaking hadn't lessened in the least bit in all that time, hardly helping him in his efforts.

To his steadily horror and confusion, Will then saw that the groups of people before him whom he'd been watching had not been even _moved_ by the shaking of the earth. As even the most deeply rooted trees seemed to be being shaken out from their perch in the ground, they alone were frighteningly still and steady at the center of it all, an unnatural piece of calm in a chaotic mess.

Before he could ponder too much on that strange sight however, a familiar feeling of the world being turned sideways struck him over the head and he completely collapsed onto the bush he'd been clinging onto once more, as both his hands suddenlyfound themselves preoccupied with holding his aching head. It was the same feeling that had incapacitated him during his recent capture, that had gotten him here in the first place, and he _hated_ it.

This time however, with his recent experience, he was able to at least retain enough awareness to still notice what was unfolding right in front of his very eyes.

In the distance, so far away that it was a mere speck within the forest, something seemed to explode as a blinding spot of light burst into existence. The world's shaking increased with its appearance, as did the pain in Will's head, much to his irritation and dismay.

He heard the people he'd been spying on shouting as they broke apart from their circle formation to race towards the light.

In part due to desperation and in part because of his hope that everybody nearby would be too distracted to notice him, Will stumbled to his feet to clumsily follow them, in what he hoped to be a safe distance away as he was too out of it too make much of an effort to conceal himself.

As Will approached it, the already blinding speck of light ahead grew brighter still, becoming impossible to directly look at, before suddenly vanishing as abruptly as it had appeared. Another minute found the shaking of the ground slowly disappeared as well, leaving only the sounds of shouts in the distance to indicate that anything had ever happened.

Will's headache unfortunately failed to also disappear with the light and the strange earthquake, and he was still a bit off balance, but he noted gladly that his assumption that nobody would notice him through all the chaos held true at least.

Just ahead of him, he saw a drop in ground and a large group of around forty people, rapidly growing in numbers as more throughout the area joined in, standing in a circle in the lower ground below. All of them were tense and focused on something they were surrounding. Or rather _someone_ he noticed as he got closer and his vantage point from a slightly elevated area above the gathering of people allowed him a glimpse into the center of the group.

Skidding to a stop as he got uncomfortably close to the massive mob, Will squinted as he tried to make sense of the scene before him. From where he was, he was able to make out the figures two men, one of them screaming with desperation and anger as they threateningly held a knife against the neck of the other. Both of them appeared to be soaking wet for some reason.

"Stay back or I'll kill him! I'm warning you, all of you! _Stay back!_ " Will couldn't help but tense as the animalistic screams of the man with the knife reached him.

Whoever was holding the hostage definitely didn't sound like he was kidding and an ominous anticipation had begun to swell in his mind. Then, he began notice even more details about the two men at the center of attention that he hadn't caught before.

Details such as the torn Ranger cloak the hostage was wearing and an all too familiar bearded face that had been hard to recognize at first, for Will had never seen it so twisted as it was now. Will's breath abandoned him in a rush and he could _feel_ the blood rushing through the veins of his face as it drained from his face. It was impossible and it _couldn't be_ who he thought it was, but he was rather certain that he knew the face of the hostage all the same.

He'd seen that face everyday for the past over a year or so. It was the face of _home_ , of a family he had never dared to even dream of having as a child. It was a face belonging to someone he believed to be unstoppable.

And it shouldn't- _couldn't-_ be here.

His recognition of the hostage sunk in all the same however and his mind had become a blank slate.

At that moment, all he was aware of was the face of the defiant man with a knife held against his throat, who bore an uncharacteristically upset look further twisted by confusion. It _couldn't_ be, yet it _was_...

 _Halt?_

* * *

Halt hadn't realized that he was still clutching his not-so-defeated opponent's arm until the jagged rocks that they'd both been plummeting towards vanished with a bright, white light that filled his vision.

As the feeling of plummeting to his death faded away with shocking speed, the Ranger's already disoriented, aching head spun with relief and anticipation. At the same time, he also then stumbled to the confusing realization that he had irrefutably just been _teleported_ from one place to another.

Halt wasn't sure how such a thing was possible, but he _was_ sure that it had something to do with the strange man whom he still had a death grip on. Instinctively, the Ranger had the urge to release his hold on the man, for whatever he was, he was clearly something unnatural and dangerous.

He didn't though, as the still functioning parts of his mind told him that if he were to find himself free falling to a certain death again, this man was his best hope for survival-

Halt's thoughts and composure, just barely beginning to recover, were scrambled once more as he suddenly found himself underwater then.

Having no warning, and therefore not even had a chance to hold his breath, water- _salty water-_ immediately rushed down his throat and into his lungs before he even had time to process his new environment.

They'd been teleported somewhere so deep under wherever this body of water was that the surface didn't seem to be anywhere in _sight_ , let alone being close enough for him to swim up to. The pressure of countless feet of water pressed down on him, making his ears pop and making him feel even heavier as he began to sink.

Halt found himself choking despite the lack of air he had to spare as his body instinctively tried to get more _air_ , but only got more water and hecouldn'tbreathehecouldn'tbreathe _hecouldn'tbreathe!_

He'd already lost his hold on the man that had dragged him here in the first place and the Ranger knew that with the man, he'd also lost any hope to escape this situation. Still, he tried to swim up towards sweet, precious _air_ , but he couldn't even tell which way was up or down and his limbs ended up just flailing around uselessly.

Black spots blotched his vision and he felt all his strength draining out of him. Halt then found himself confronted by a frighteningly deep and dark abyss that seemed to _surround_ him, _press down_ on him, and _drag_ him towards it.

His struggles were weakening even as his desperation grew… With a final, useless kick of his legs, his body began to shut down on him… He unwillingly fell limp into the cradle of the currents of the water.

 _Was this truly how his life would-_

Hands suddenly snatched at his clothes, before they then got a firm hold on his arms. A blinding white light filled his vision once more, though this time he felt no more pain or disorientation than he already did.

Then, the crushing pressure of the water was lifted off of him and he could _breathe_ again.

His stomach still churned with water and his lungs still hurt and were definitely filled with water too, but that wasn't something he had to worry about for long. A ground materialized beneath him soon enough and he gratefully collapsed onto it, desperately coughing and throwing up all the water he'd just consumed as he did.

He barely noticed as a pair of arms yanked him to a half standing position, with one arm holding up most his weight and another wrapped around his throat, not quite tightly enough to choke him but enough to be uncomfortable. He then felt something cold against his neck.

Awareness came back to him slowly as his blurry vision brought the world back into focus. His rescuer, his opponent, was the one holding him up, the Ranger realized, and he was _screaming_. Surrounding them was a massive crowd, all staring at them with a frighteningly intense focus. Some had their weapons drawn while others stood empty handed yet somehow appearing to be even more threatening than those with the weapons.

"Stand down now," An authoritative voice demanded monotonously from somewhere within the crowd surrounding them, a stark contrast to the panicked breathing and shrieking of his opponent. At those words, the crowd seemed to tighten and get closer to them.

The knife at his throat pressed down slightly harder in response.

" _No!_ Stay back or I'll kill him! I'm warning you, all of you! _Stay back!_ " The threat seemed to at least make the crowd hesitate in their approach.

Halt wasn't sure what he was supposed to do then, for with the knife pressed against his throat, he didn't exactly have many options. Additionally, the knife at his throat also seemed to be the only thing holding back the swarm of likely enemies surrounding him anyway, so even if he did escape the clutches of his opponent, he wasn't exactly going to be in any better of a situation. It appeared that he had no way out, that he was essentially screwed whether he acted or not.

So, in the end, the Ranger settled for scowling fiercely at his general surroundings, not particularly caring who his glare landed on as he was evidently surrounded by enemies. He could do nothing wait and see how things would play out from here for now.

A silence had swelled around the area as his opponent seemed to convince everyone that he was serious about his threat. As a warm trickle of blood slithered down his throat, Halt found himself rather convinced as well.

"What makes you think we would care whether or not that man dies?" The monotonous voice from before then asked softly.

"Because you _know_ who this is. We _all_ know this face as well as our own at this point, and we all also know that the General and our lord will _have your heads_ if you let him die." There was an ugly, bitter certainty in his opponent's words as he said them. Halt's scowl darkened at their implications as he wondered which of his thousands of enemies was behind his current predicament. "Now, I'll kill this Ranger right here and now if you try to get any closer, _but_ if one of you would be willing to go back to camp and get me some healing charms and let me heal, I'll let him into your custody and we can all walk out of this... _situation._ "

"You're pathetic." Another monotonous voice spoke up from the crowd dispassionately. "You know that demand is ridiculous. Besides, you appear to be too far gone to be saved anyway. Give the Ranger to us now and we'll give you a quicker, more merciful end."

Halt could feel the knife trembling against his neck, drawing out more trickles of blood and eliciting a dull pain as well. A chilling chuckle rippled in the silence.

"Is this really how it has to be? So be it then." His opponent's voice was hollow now. "I suppose I'll be seeing all of you in hell soon…" Halt's eyes widened as everything suddenly rocketed from bad to fatal, and yet he knew that he wouldn't have time to even twitch a muscle before-

" _Hey!_ " A voice suddenly screamed from a short distance away. "Over here!" All eyes spun to see a scrawny figure leap up from behind a bush on a slightly elevated position above them.

Instinctively, Halt instantly recognized the young, terrified face and the mop of brown hair, even tangled with twigs sticking out of it as it was.

 _Will_.

Before he could even process the boy's appearance, the apprentice Ranger proceeded to continue screaming nonsensical insults at no one in particular as he then raised a stick and began waving it around in a vaguely threatening manner. Halt assumed that this insane behavior was all an apparent, undoubtedly useless attempt to somehow help him, but he was too preoccupied with his horror to appreciate that fact.

It took only a few more moments for the crowd around Halt to react.

"What are you fools waiting for? Get him!" The once monotonous voice snapped thunderously, and those closest to the apprentice Ranger promptly then began moving.

Like a swarm of hornets, they moved as a single body, a terrifyingly vast mass of single minded soldiers hellbent on swallowing up Will, who appeared much too small in comparison. For some stupid reason, the boy didn't seem particularly inclined to run and even continued his shouting, though with less enthusiasm than before, during the crowd's initial charge for him.

Halt was half a second from screaming at the boy, consequences be damned, _to do something other than sit and wait for capture_ before Will did exactly that and dropped his stick to sprint away from his impending pursuers.

Slow as all these events had seemed to Halt, it had actually occurred within the range of just a few seconds and the next thing he knew, his gut twisted again as his captor decided to take advantage of the situation to disappear again. Halt felt a touch of his own stupidity as he found himself desperately not wanting to leave.

 _His apprentice still needed him._ Now more than perhaps ever before. The boy had been _right there,_ so close yet growing increasingly far as he ran for his life. Halt couldn't just leave him here!

But the knife was still at his throat and he could only watch in numb horror built upon a blanket of shock as white filled his vision and Will disappeared into the woods.

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, I'm not happy with the last two scenes at all, but I decided I had to move one with the story at some point. I'll probably go back and edit this and the next chapter later, but for now I'm going to leave it be. Thanks again to all you wonderful readers for still being here and I hope this chapter didn't disappoint! Special thanks to all you wonderful reviewers and anyone who favorited/followed this story. It's always great and encouraging to receive some support and feedback.**

 **I'm too tired to address every single review here and I think the word count of this chapter is already long enough without even more crap in the author's note section, so I hope nobody minds. Know that I've read every single one of the reviews however and am grateful for every single one! Another reminder that any criticism would be awesome as I actually try to learn from them to improve my writing. Any feedback on the pacing for this chapter and the overall story in general would be great. Below are all the awesome reviewers from last chapter:**

 **Jasmine Loh, S3riana, Guest (multiple ones), RangerLegolas7, Cellorules, M.T, Anonymous, allie300093, Melissa Waters, Weirdo, Lilly-daughter of Radolso, MagicalMysteryPhantom, CallMeCharlotte, Gerbilfriend, Ranger-of-the-shadows, Snowy Analia**

 **Big thanks to everyone of you! Next chapter will hopefully come sooner, but we'll see how it all works out. Whenever summer comes around again, updates will hopefully be a lot more frequent.**

 **As for next chapter's preview... basically the rest of my promise for this chapter from the last one lol. And a bit extra in which Will ends up biting off a lot more than he could chew. Until then, I, EndlessStars, bid you farewell!**


	6. Chapter 6: How Things Settle

**A/N: So this took several months again... Can't say I wasn't expecting this to happen with how busy school got. With summer here now, however, I'm hoping for much more frequent updates, maybe even better than last summer (which technically indicates that I've been working on this for over a year now... certainly doesn't feel that way though with the long breaks I took lol). I won't make any promises though, as I still have a busy summer ahead, but this is the longest I've managed to stick with a fanfiction project and I'm still really inspired to carry on with it, which seems like a good sign. Just beware that it may take a long time to reach the end, but for the time being, updates will be more plentiful.**

 **Now something to note for this overall chapter is that since this is an AU, I've taken some liberties with certain character/story elements. For example, little is known about Gilan's childhood and family, so I decided to fill in that part of his background to go with the plot for this story. Additionally, since there won't be a trip to Celtica and Morgarath's plans are completely different here, I'd decided to add some events** **between the end of the first book and the beginning of this story for Will** **and Gilan to develop there friendship like they had during the second book. In case the last chapter's beginning snippet/set up wasn't clear, these events will be told in flashbacks of sorts at the beginning of each chapter and the consequences of these events will tie into a lot of the main plot. Because of this, Gilan and Will have a bit of a closer friendship here than they did at the beginning of the second book and they may hint back at these events throughout these next chapters. Just something to keep in mind for this chapter.**

 **Now, without any further ado, let the story continue!**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Still just fanfiction, all rights go to John Flanagan**

Chapter 6: How Things Settle

 _Halt was long gone by the time Will finally woke up. This, combined with the fact that the sun was already hanging in a rather high position in the sky, all made the apprentice Ranger's mood understandably sour when he finally woke up and plopped down in Gilan's dining room to be caught up to speed with recent events. Gilan for his part was both amused and concerned to see this new side of the boy._

 _On one hand, he had no idea how to deal with a grumpy Will as the apprentice was usually so cheerful and approachable. On the other hand, he felt that he was finally getting a glimpse of what Halt had probably gone through during his own apprenticeship, and he was starting to understand why his mentor had always seemed so sadistically amused at his own perceived suffering._

" _Cheer up, Will. Halt might've left, but your stay here is hardly going to be a vacation. You're still an apprentice Ranger and_ I _am a Ranger, so you'll have enough work to do soon enough."_

" _He abandoned me." Will mumbled sulkily in response, not really seeming to have paid attention to a single word Gilan had said. "I can't believe Halt would just abandon me like that. And he didn't even say goodbye before leaving!"_

" _To be fair, we did try waking you up, but you were as dead as log." Gilan said mildly, setting a breakfast of bacon and eggs before the apprentice as he finished making them. "Now eat up. It'll probably cheer you up and you'll find that I'm a much better chef than Halt. We have a long day ahead of us."_

" _Why did he leave like? Just what kind of mission is he going on?" Will continued to mutter absently to himself, seeming to have completely missed Gilan's words._

" _The real question is if you're hearing a single word I'm saying." Gilan said, waving his hand in front of the apprentice's face with mock concern. "Are you alright? Do I need bring a mind healer down here?" Will had the courtesy to look slightly embarrassed at his behavior._

" _Sorry, Gilan. I'm still somewhat in shock is all. You know, I wasn't really expecting any of this, having to stay here for an entire_ month _. I didn't imagine I was going to be suddenly essentially moved from Redmont for so long when we left. I've never left it for so long." Gilan could hear the creeping homesickness in the apprentice's voice as he spoke. He offered a sympathetic grin to him in response._

" _No need to worry, Will. Halt will be back in no time, and you'll be quite busy in the meantime anyway."_

" _But why did Halt leave me here? What's this mission of his?" Gilan's face grew slightly more somber._

" _I'm honestly not sure. He didn't really give me any details beyond that it was a mission from Crowley." Will's eyebrow shot up at that, an eerie mirror of his mentor's favorite expression next to scowling._

" _That's a lie…" The apprentice said rather certainly. "I would've known if Crowley had given him such a message."_

" _How's that?"_

" _Halt makes me run down to the post office to get all his mail. I would've seen any letter Crowley had sent him and we received no such letter." Gilan frowned._

" _Well first off, it sounds like Halt's gotten even lazier since my apprenticeship. Secondly, Halt tends to do whatever he feels is the right thing to do. If he really has lied, I'm sure he has a good reason behind it, and we really couldn't and shouldn't pry into it."_

" _But-" Will opened his mouth to protest only for Gilan to hold up a stern hand._

" _I'm serious, Will. You and I really will have some important business of our own to be concerned about while Halt's off doing his own thing." The young Ranger glanced out the window pointedly at this. "Speaking of which, you really should hurry up and eat your breakfast. We're going into town soon and it might be awhile before you could sit down and have a meal again." Will's eyes narrowed suspiciously at this._

" _What's that supposed to mean?"_

" _You'll see soon enough." Gilan said tiredly._

 _Unfortunately, however, neither of them could've expected the chain of events that was about to be set into motion._

* * *

 _Four months later..._

 _I'm so going to die._ Will thought giddily to himself as the trees of the forest seemed to rush past him in a blur.

He wasn't sure what he'd been thinking when he'd leaped out from his hiding spot behind the bushes. In fact, it was beginning to seem as if he might not have been thinking at all. All he could really think of to justify his actions was how it had sounded like the man who'd been holding a knife to his mentor's neck had been a moment away from slitting his said mentor's throat, and Will simply couldn't allow that to happen.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder if he couldn't have chosen a better course of action than leaping up and shouting like a madman. The apprentice Ranger also briefly wondered if his ridiculous, pitiful attempt at a distraction had even been enough to at least provide a sufficient opening for Halt to somehow escape both his captor and the surrounding mob of enemies, but the thunderous sounds of way too many feet chasing after him rapidly stomped those thoughts away.

In his gut, he knew that it had to be enough. He'd _refuse_ to accept any other alternative. So he continued to run, resisting the childish urge to turn right back around to the aid and comfort of his mentor's familiar face. Halt would be fine. He was _Halt_ after all.

Meanwhile, the sounds of his pursuers sounded a lot closer now, and Will still wasn't really sure where he was heading or what exactly his next plan of action should be. When fear and his basic survival instincts had driven him to run away from the swarm of people charging up to meet him, he hadn't exactly thought through which direction he should be heading in other than _away_ from where he had been at the moment.

That of course didn't change the fact that running forever wasn't really an option, and even now, he was only barely ahead of his pursuers. He had to do something fast or he'd end up captured again or worse. With no real idea of where exactly he was and nobody nearby who could provide any aid to him, however, his hopes for an escape were steadily dwindling.

A few moments after that particular optimistic thought, Will spotted two figures rushing towards him, or at least his general direction. A dread bubbled up inside him as he quickly recognized the two figures. A few instances more found him close enough to see the terror in their eyes.

Irrational anger rooted in despair twisted his expression as he skidded to a halt a short distance away from the two figures. He'd never really had any chance to actually escape anyway, but this made his own recapture all the more bitter.

"What are you two doing here?" He snapped, his tone uncharacteristically livid and his voice hysterically an octave higher than normal.

Pale and shaking violently, Henrik shook his head wordlessly as he and Runar came to a halt as well. Will's anger left him as quickly as it came as he got a better look at his companions. Runar's face was frighteningly blank, having lost any life that might've been there before, which contrasted awfully with the wild look of terror that appeared to be permanently carved onto Henrik's face. The most concerning part of their appearance, however, were the dark stains splashed haphazardly against their shirts, which had a disturbing resemblance to blood.

Will's question never got the chance to be answered, for a few instances later, the apprentices were surrounded and seized for the second time in recent memory. Once more, soldiers grabbed at them with their iron grips, and Will couldn't help but wonder if he was going to become used to that feeling during the bleak future ahead of him.

While this was all occurring, the other two apprentice's expression remained unchanged as they silently allowed themselves to be forced on their knees and tied up, captured once more. The extent of his fellow apprentices' apparent horror at something unknown would've usually alarmed Will, but that was quickly overshadowed as a gasp then seemed to ripple through the group surrounding them and everyone froze.

With pathetically optimistic hopes, Will glanced up from the ground, hoping to make out the source of their captor's shock, hoping to see his mentor there, ready to pull off another miracle.

Instead, his day seemed to only get worse as he saw a ghostly white horse trotting towards them in the distance. The apprentice Ranger was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fog of fear trembling in the air around him. Something about how calmly the rider in the distance was approaching them made him nervous too.

Slowly, the crowd parted as the figure grew ever closer, leaving open a path that led straight to the apprentices. Only a single man came forward from the swarm of people around them to stand between them and the rider, though Will rather doubted he had come out to help them in any way.

There was a smothering silence in the forest as everyone watched the lone rider's approach. Will, however, wasn't paying attention to their mysterious visitor. Instead, he found his attention fixed on the still unchanged faces of his fellow apprentices as he couldn't help but note how the rider was coming from the same direction that the apprentices had ran from.

* * *

Warm blood was trickling down his face.

" _Halt? Halt! Over here, I've found him!"_

" _Dear lord, is he_ dead _?"_

" _Shut up! Someone hurry up and get Crowley!"_

A pounding headache matched the beat of his heart.

" _What's_ he _supposed to about this? Look at his face! It's-"_

" _Just go!"_

" _He seems to still be breathing… Should we touch him?"_

" _Halt? Halt, are you awake?"_

Instinctively, he wanted to say that he was fine, but his face hurt as he tried to move it.

" _He seems to be responding at least."_

" _Hold on, Halt. We'll figure all this out soon…"_

He wanted to feel reassured by the words, but the voices were already fading away even as they continued speaking.

 _Darkness. Silence. Cold._

* * *

The man standing between the rider and the apprentice Rangers quickly knelt as the rider finally reached the small crowd.

"Lord Morgarath, we weren't expecting to see you here. What brings you to this corner of the forest?"

Will nearly choked on his own tongue as he heard the words. Disbelievingly, he glanced at the other apprentices only to find them as still as a couple of stone statues, their faces still unchanged. A slithery voice slid over the silence in the meantime.

"I had wanted to simply drop by and see how exactly things were going around here." Cold as he was, the rider- _Morgarath_ was deceptively calm as he spoke. "Your recent reports have been most intriguing, and I had wanted to see for myself all that you've supposedly accomplished in this past month. I must say, Colonel, I've been very _surprised_ by everything I've seen so far." The man in front of the apprentices was trembling now, which certainly wasn't helping Will's already frayed nerves.

"My Lord, I-"

"It truly _was_ surprising to find how half of my men have hastily abandoned the camp, allowing for the escape of the very prisoners they'd captured just yesterday." The man didn't even bother trying to answer and only kept his eyes locked on the ground as a silence descended across them. "It appears now, however, that you've already been busying yourselves with correcting this little stumble, am I correct?"

To Will's horror, the dark, deadened eyes of Morgarath then shifted over to focus on him and his companions. He should've taken a cue from the other apprentices and the man in front of him, and lowered his eyes to the ground, but his gaze somehow ended up catching that of Morgarath's instead. Even his heart seemed to still as he found himself caught under a spell of paralysis.

"Yes, My Lord. I apologize for our carelessness." The man sounded sickeningly relieved as he relaxed slightly. "An urgent signal had told us that an unidentified and unexpected disturbance had been about to happen somewhere in this area and it had required our urgent attention. I realize now however, that we may have acted a little hastily."

"Of course," Morgarath said dryly, though there was a slight shift in his tone. "And what exactly was this disturbance?" The man hesitated at this, but with the slightest narrowing of Morgarath's eyes, he immediately spoke up once more.

"A Shadow had apparently been left behind yesterday and had attempted to return to get himself healed." The words were halted and forced, as if they were being dragged out of the man's throat. Morgarath sighed at this, sounding almost bored.

"What is it that you're hiding from me, Colonel? You know I don't appreciate secrets." Will tensed almost as much as the man before him, as he realized what exactly was about to be revealed. Still, from what he'd heard earlier, the man before him would surely have an interest in not revealing the truth… There was nearly a full minute of hesitation.

" _A Ranger._ " The man the finally hissed out in an oddly hollowed voice, as though the words weren't his own. "The Shadow came here with a Ranger as a hostage." Will could've sworn that the ice that had suddenly appeared in Morgarath's gaze actually made the temperature around them drop a degree or two.

"Which Ranger?"

"We were unable to identify them-"

" _Which Ranger?_ "

"... The Shadow had claimed him to be Ranger Halt."

"And where are they now?" Will sucked in a breath as he waited for the answer. Had his stunt been enough to facilitate a miraculous escape for his mentor?

"We don't know." The man admitted with all the volume of a breeze. "T-that boy over there had interrupted us in the middle of our… meeting and we were then preoccupied with recapturing him first." Will's heart had clawed its way up his throat at this point as Morgarath's focus sharpened in on him.

" _I see_... Well as enlightening as this conversation has been, I'm sure we can carry on with it back at a more secure location considering the three _apprentices_ we have with us here. I for one would suggest the camp you all decided to abandon. In the meantime, I should hope that _Halt_ is still out here somewhere and that somebody will find him soon. Rangers, particularly _that_ _Ranger_ , are rather slippery creatures..." At those words, the man finally stood back up as he turned to the others surrounding them.

"You all heard that! Go back and retrieve the Shadow and the Ranger!" He ordered, though Will could see the way his hands were trembling the entire time. "And if they aren't there, scour the forest and find them!"

Quickly, the crowd around them went to follow their orders and swiftly went back towards the direction they came from, although a small group stayed back to drag the apprentices back to the camp.

* * *

Even after his earlier revelation that he'd somehow been captured by Morgarath's men, whom he hadn't even previously known existed, Gilan hadn't expected to have to face the man himself so soon. Sure, his captors had told him that Morgarth would be coming specifically to visit him "in a short while", but at the time, he'd been preoccupied with the entire camp around him exploding into what seemed to be a frenzied panic.

Now, after everything had settled back down for a bit, however, a messenger suddenly scrambled into his prison tent and whispered something to the tall man with discolored eyes still guarding him in the tent. The man's eyes had widened ever so slightly at whatever he'd been told, and the next thing Gilan knew, he was suddenly being dragged to his feet and pushed out of the tent. The young Ranger had a sinking feeling that he wasn't exactly about to go on a stroll through woods. Surely enough, the sight he was immediately greeted with was alarming to say the least.

Firstly, he immediately recognized from a distance the disheveled, hunched-over figures of three apprentice Rangers, with two of them covered in blood, looking like they were staring down the face of death, and the another one with a familiar shock of brown hair tangled with leaves and branches for some reason. Internally, Gilan groaned to himself as he saw the signs of a failed escape attempt, which he knew would only make things worse for the apprentices.

His dismay was quickly driven out of his mind however as his gaze then moved to that of the pale figure sitting upon a skeletal white horse.

Gilan would recognize that face anywhere. He had seen portraits of it throughout his entire childhood during history lessons, and had heard descriptions of it from various nobles and battlemasters as they had recalled a monster from a war of just a few years ago.

A part of Gilan was understandably panicking as he saw the dark, cruel eyes of Morgarth moving towards him. He'd been trained well, however, and he somehow managed to keep his face blank as the subject of his childhood horror stories approached him with three very messed up apprentices.

"And who is this?" A low, smooth voice asked as Morgarath came to a halt. Forced onto their knees, the apprentices knelt a few paces behind him, surrounded by guards

"My lord," The man with discolored eyes bowed down before Morgarath. "I had not known that you would be arriving so early. This is the Ranger Gilan."

"Ah, yes, of course... _Halt's_ apprentice. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Gilan." Gilan kept his expression carefully neutral as he met Morgarath with a steady gaze. He didn't know how exactly he was supposed to react and his vocal chords didn't seem to be interested in functioning at the moment, but he could tell by the awkward silence that he had to respond somehow to the pale, deathly man before him.

"What is it that you want from me?" He eventually asked quietly, trying to stay calm so as to at least avoid an immediate confrontation. Morgarath's face split into lifeless expression that may have been intended to be a friendly grin, but Gilan could practically hear the creaks and groans as the thin face tried to contort itself into a smile it didn't know.

"Well, that will all depend on whether or not you all decide to cooperate with us. If you are willing to cooperate, I'll be happy to simply allow you to live here in relative comfort until this all blows over. On the other hand, if you choose to rebel, we'll be forced to take _certain measures_ to ensure that you don't cause any trouble during your stay here."

Gilan's eyes narrowed as he saw the lie in Morgarath's eyes. It sounded so simple, but no Ranger would ever agree to the former option and Morgarath knew that. The smile on the ex-baron's face tilted into a more natural smirk.

"Either way, we can be sure that you'll all be out of the way for a while."

"And why would you want that?" Gilan couldn't help but ask. Any normal warlord wouldn't disclose such information, but Morgarath seemed chatty enough at the moment, probably gloating over Gilan's capture, and the young Ranger figured he wasn't an average warlord anyway judging by the deranged smirk on his face. "You think that getting rid of a few Rangers is going to let you win a war? You underestimate Araluen." Perhaps those words were a little risky, but as a Ranger, he knew how to judge people and Morgarath didn't seem interested in murdering him at the moment at the very least.

So much for avoiding confrontation though.

* * *

Since being dragged back to the camp, Will had been determined to keep his eyes locked on the ground no matter what in order to avoid a repeat of his earlier experience. He'd been rather successful so far and had even been able to hide his relief and dismay at seeing Gilan alive, but clearly just as imprisoned as he was. Everything had been going relatively smoothly, and distinctly _nonviolently_ , for a short minute until Gilan decided, for whatever reason, to shake things up with some bold words.

"You think that getting rid of a few Rangers is going to let you win a war? You underestimate Araluen."

Will couldn't help but allow his eyes to flicker up to Morgarath to see his reaction. Unsettlingly enough however, the warlord didn't seem to have much of a reaction as his smirk remained on his face.

"No, I believe it is you who has underestimated your own worth." Morgarath eventually drawled, as he swung away from Gilan to the approach the group of apprentices just behind him. Will once more failed to drop his gaze, and he distantly contemplated on whether or not he had a subconscious death wish. "Without you pesky, wretched Rangers around, this kingdom is as good as mine." Morgarath's eyes glinted coldly as he pointed his sword down at one of the apprentice Rangers. "Now can one of you tell me where the Ranger Halt might be?"

Will glared up at him. He'd sooner sew his own lips shut. It was just his luck that the sword happened to be pointing steadily between _his_ eyes too, as Morgarath's forbidding gaze seemed to look right through him.

He wondered for a moment if Morgarath knew who he was. He had apparently known Gilan as Halt's apprentice, but he had yet to acknowledge Will with the same recognition. Will decided that it would be best not to question this however, especially with Morgarath's sword pointing straight at him at the moment.

Without thinking, he began to open his mouth, though he wasn't sure what exactly what he'd been about to say. Probably something stupid that would've gotten his head lopped off on the spot.

"What do you mean?" Gilan suddenly blurted out before Will could get in a single word. The young Ranger, previously rather calm, was tense as his eyes glanced towards Will warningly.

"How rude of me." Morgarath said with mock concern, obviously aware of Gilan's attempt to divert his attention away from the apprentice. "I suppose you haven't heard yet. Well, I'm sure you'll be glad to know that your dear mentor decided to stop by for a visit just recently." As he spoke, his gaze and sword never once wavered from Will. "This _boy_ was apparently there and stupid enough to try and help him. He appears to be less than cooperative in sharing any information with us at the moment too. Perhaps _you_ can try to talk some sense into your little friend here, Gilan, before I'm forced to take any further action?"

From the corner of his eyes, Will noticed how the other two blood-soaked apprentices flinched at those words. Then, with much effort, Will diverted his eyes from the sword pointed at his face to look at Gilan for his response. With a deep frown, the young Ranger appeared uncertain, and also seemed a few shades paler than before.

"Tell him what you know." Gilan then said quietly. Will, not expecting that particular response, only blinked as he gaped at his friend in shock.

" _What?_ " He squawked.

"Tell him what you know." Gilan repeated in a much more steely voice. "There's little benefit for you to keep anything a secret. After all, I doubt you know anything important enough to be worth getting tortured over."

That last sentence was clearly meant for Morgarath as much as it was for Will, and after a moment, the apprentice realized the full message behind the words. As an apprentice, his own knowledge was rather limited, which meant that even the most important secrets he knew were likely of little value or something that he could afford to give up, even if it wasn't ideal. Gilan was essentially telling him here that he could feel safe giving away any information he knew.

"I don't know what happened to Halt." Will admitted a few seconds later. "Preoccupied with running away, I hadn't even had the time to look back, let alone figure out where Halt went afterwards."

A long silence stretched as Morgarath considered his response.

"How unfortunate." He finally said lightly, slowly sheathing his sword. "I suppose we'll all just have to wait for more news then. For all of our sakes, I would hope that my men will return with Halt soon."

Even without having a sword pointed at his face, Will felt the subtle threat in Morgarath's voice as an axe hanging over his head, prepared for an execution.

* * *

After a short while, Morgarath had eventually decided to pass the time by settling in what was presumably the command tent, while the Rangers were all corralled back into a prison tent. Miraculously reunited at least in someway with familiar faces, Gilan had desperately wanted to demand the apprentices to explain all that they had gone through during their separation right then and there, if only to at least calm his own nerves. Surrounded by guards as they were, however, he had to restrain himself.

At some later point in time, the two blood-soaked apprentices were then dragged to their feet and led out to an unknown fate, swaying dangerously on their feet as they were. Seeing Gilan and Will tensing up, one of the guards had grunted out something about a "healing spell" before any confrontation could blow up in all of their faces. Both Rangers had been determined to not think too hard on the implications of those words as they reluctantly backed down.

Now, crouched alone in the tent with their hands bound uncomfortably behind their backs, they could only sit and nervously wait for news about Halt. Ultimately, it was Will who couldn't help himself and ended up breaking up the silence with a cautious question.

"Are you alright, Gilan?" The said Ranger managed a weak grin at the question.

"I'm honestly not sure." He admitted quietly, eyes glancing around to make sure none of the guards were listening in on them. "I'm rather certain that I had been stabbed last night and something funny happened to my head earlier, but I suppose I'm not dead yet at the very least."

"You've been _stabbed_?" Will hissed, eyes wide as he struggled to keep his voice down. He scooted closer in an attempt to inspect his friend for any such injury, while Gilan frowned.

"I _think_ I remember being stabbed, but I haven't been in any pain since and there seems to be no signs of any injuries on me. Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if I somehow imagined the whole thing." He then looked at Will with a critical eye. "What about you? Are you alright? Do you know what happened to the other two apprentices?" Will shook his head absently as he still stared at Gilan with wide, worried eyes.

" _I'm_ mostly fine, save for a few bruises. It's you and the others that I'm worried about. I have no idea what happened to the others after we separated, but they'd looked terrified out of their minds when I first bumped into them. I think..." Will glanced around nervously before continuing. "I think Morgarath did something to them."

"That's not much of a surprise." Gilan murmured sadly, before looking at Will with a serious expression. "Tell me everything that's happened. This might be one of our few chances to talk freely."

And so Will began to explain everything, from Runar's strange tracks and their capture in the forest to his almost-interrogation and the failed escape attempt. Gilan sighed heavily at the end of it all.

"Good effort in at least trying to escape. In a situation like this, any slight opportunity to escape should be taken." He frowned then. "But I have to warn you, now these people's guards will be up a lot more and escape may be more difficult. Also, try not rile them up. It might provoke some _violent_ responses, to say the least, and with all the strangeness that's been going on, we have no idea what to expect and no idea what they could do to us." Will nodded solemnly in acceptance of his words.

"What're we going to do from here, then?" He asked, trying to sound casual, but failing as some fear still made it into his voice. Gilan paused for a moment before responding.

"Survive." He said wearily. "Survive at all costs until we get the chance to escape or be rescued. And probably gather some information while we're at it." Will smiled wanly at him.

"That sounds doable. How hard can it be?"

Something about those words disturbed Gilan as a sense of deja vu hit him. Before he could respond, however, a burst of nervous voices rose from outside and he looked at the entrance of the tent with a sense of foreboding.

It would appear that their time was up. The news about Halt had returned.

Inevitable as it was, Gilan had hoped that it would've taken longer for the reports to come in. The silence that seemed to engulf the entire camp wasn't a good sign of what had been found either.

Then again, if Gilan really thought about it, they were in a lose-lose situation no matter what had happened. If Morgarath's men had found Halt, then their mentor would be dragged into this mess and wouldn't be able to plan any sort of rescue. If they hadn't found Halt, however, then he and the apprentices would surely face the consequences. Will in particular would be the direct cause of Halt's escape and Morgarath _knew_ that…

Gilan's head quickly turned to warn Will of what might occur soon, but he never got he chance to as the flaps of their tent were suddenly ripped open and a livid Morgarath swiftly stormed in, sword slithering out with an ominous _hiss_. Gilan's breath caught in his throat as he and Will both instinctively shrank back.

" _You!_ " Morgarath growled, not unlike some rabid animal. " _You're going to pay for this!_ " With his eyes bulging and a strained vein against his forehead, he appeared to be the epitome of a madman.

Both Rangers scrambled back as best as they could with their hands bound behind them, startled and horrified by what they were seeing, but that only delayed the inevitable by a few seconds. In contrast to his previous, eerily calm attitude, the Lord of Rain and Night looked unhinged and downright murderous.

"My lord, please-" A soldier scrambling in after Morgarath tried to speak, but was abruptly shut up as the warlord swung around to direct the full force of his rage at him.

" _Silence!_ " Morgarath snarled. "Leave immediately or I'll make sure _you_ suffer as well!" The soldier immediately stumbled back out of the tent. Gilan barely noticed, however, as Morgarath had already turned back around, raising his sword as he did. The Ranger's eyes widened in horror as he realized in a vital, split second what the sword's intended target was.

He had no time to think or hesitate. From where he was crouched slightly in front of Will, Gilan instinctively threw himself into the sword's path as Morgarath swung it down. Before he could even process his own actions, the sword had already sliced deep into his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and managed to swallow down a cry of pain as black spots burst to life and danced around in his eyes. The biting, white-hot pain of the sword blow felt like a wildfire that quickly spread to the rest of his body, and it took his breath away. Morgarath barely paused as he yanked his weapon back up and kicked Gilan aside with relative ease. He'd never felt so powerless.

"Gilan!" Will managed to choke out as he snapped out of the frozen, terrified state he'd been in. He was soon preoccupied with bigger concerns, however, as Morgarath grabbed a fistful of his shirt and dragged him to the tip of his toes.

" _You…_ It was _you_ who facilitated Halt's escape." Morgarath spat, and even though he wasn't attacking yet, Will was just as horrified as he'd been when the warlord had raised his sword with the intention of cutting him down.

Somehow, despite his current predicament, his eyes slid over to Gilan at this thought, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps, it was because of his fear for his friend who had literally just thrown himself between Will and certain death. Maybe it was because he himself needed some form of reassurance as he found himself face to face with the Lord of Rain and Night. It might have been a bit of both.

Gilan tried to somehow communicate courage and strength to the apprentice through his gaze alone, to give him some strength of his own to get through this confrontation, but then Morgarath shook the apprentice violently and Will's attention was back on the warlord.

"You _dare_ to look away from me?" Morgarath raged, his hysterical voice rising in pitch. "You'll pay for this with your blood! Yours and your little friends' blood!" He then released Will's shirt to instead grab his arm so that he could proceed to drag the apprentice out of the tent.

For a second, Will tried to resist as he stubbornly dug his feet into the ground. Then, Morgarath's murderous gaze turned to look between the apprentice and Gilan, and his grip on the boy's arm somehow tightened even more. Will quickly gave up his small resistance as he saw the warning and danger in Morgarath's eyes.

"Wait, no!" Gilan desperately called out after them as they left, his mind spinning from how quickly and horribly the situation was deteriorating right before his eyes. "Will!" The apprentice managed to look back at him for a moment, and seemed to want to say something- _anything-_ to him in response. Uselessly, Gilan reached out an arm towards the apprentice from where he was collapsed, but then Will was completely dragged out of the tent. Gone. " _No!_ "

Gilan's senseless, desperate shouts would continue for a few moments more, but the silence he was confronted with forcefully told him that he was truly, completely alone. When he finally realized this and stopped shouting, he found himself struggling to process his new situation.

He suddenly noticed how his side still hurt from where Morgarath had kicked him, how his shoulder was _screaming_ as warm blood continued to flow from his wound, and how he was starting to feel dizzy from all the blood loss. At least he knew now that Halt would be okay. He'd managed to escape. He'd managed to escape and now Will-

Gilan's stomach twisted at that thought and he suddenly had an urge to vomit.

Morgarath had looked angry and unhinged enough to really _kill_ them just now. He _did_ try to kill Will and would have succeeded too, if Gilan hadn't gotten in the way. But now Will was gone, and he couldn't be there to block another blow. For all he knew, by the next time he saw the apprentice, Will could be-

Abruptly, his mind was slammed into a wall that refused to allow him to finish that thought even if he had any interest to do so. When he'd shielded Will from Morgarath's attack, perhaps a part of Gilan had known that it would be a wasted effort, that the current mess they were both in was inevitable due to Will's actions. Even so, it still hurt.

The half formed realization that the _worst_ might happen to Will now hurt a lot more than he would've imagined.

Rangers tended to be mysterious, private individuals with infamously lonely lives, but in a remarkably short time, Will had managed to land himself a spot on the short list of people that Gilan considered to be truly close to himself. He hadn't even realized this until now, however, and as a result his mind was coming to a screeching halt. The idea that he'd lost his friend so suddenly was a concept that he truly couldn't wrap his mind around yet.

Distantly, a part of him kind of wanted to cry. Another wanted to scream. Another stubbornly clung to hope.

Rangers were also known to clever planners, but Gilan had no idea what he was supposed to do now and his mind was completely scattered. Even just breathing seemed to be a difficult task at the moment as his lungs seemed to be trying to refuse any air coming in and he felt like he was choking on something. _Breathe._ He tried to focus on breathing.

A while passed as he struggled with breathing and processing a wide, conflicting range of emotions. Then, a scrawny, hooded figure suddenly scurried into the tent. Lost in his thoughts as he was, Gilan didn't notice them until they were right next to him. Still in shock over what had just happened, all he had the energy to do was stare at the mysterious figure. They didn't react to him much either, however, barely acknowledging him as a person as they reached to grip his injured shoulder with a firm hand.

He should have been alarmed, but was more confused in a detached sort of way than anything else. The hooded figure didn't seem to care though, as they then started talking to themselves in some foreign language.

Gilan watched numbly and silently. He didn't think much of the figure or their mumbling at first, couldn't bring himself to care, but then he felt the pain on his shoulder alleviating and the uncomfortable sensation of his flesh and skin _moving_ somehow. Nerves tingling, he looked to his shoulder with wide eyes, watching as his wound closed and the blood staining his clothes and skin disappeared. Then, as the figure continued speaking, even his torn shirt eventually mended itself back together. Patchy as the shirt was, by the end of it all, it was as if his injury had never happened.

 _Healing spells_. That's what the guard from earlier had said. _But that's impossible. There's no way that-_

"Food will be coming soon." A low, heavily-accented voice grunted as the figure released his shoulders. Gilan stared at them dumbly, noting how he still couldn't even tell the gender of the person who may have just saved his life. "Eat or there will be consequences." It didn't sound like a threat, but more like a warning. The Ranger couldn't even _begin_ to guess at what that could mean, though.

Before he could even think of how to respond, the figure was already standing up, leaving the tent just as suddenly and quickly as they had entered it.

Gilan's head hurt almost as much as his shoulder had just now, and he was starting to feel like he needed to lie down a bit. Too much was happening and if anything else happened, he thought he might just lose his grip. So, he proceeded to do exactly that, settling down onto the floor, and trying to find a comfortable position to lay in as he tried to focus on the blank walls of the tent he was imprisoned in. He wanted his mind just as blank as those walls.

He spent a solid while trying to empty his mind, but time slowly marched on, he found that all he could think of was his last glimpse of Will, and the apprentice's wide, frightened eyes when he'd looked back at Gilan in those last moments. That very well may have been the last time he would ever- The wall stopped him from finishing his thoughts once more and Gilan thought that he had never felt so alone.

His head hurt even more now.

* * *

As promised, food would eventually arrive and with it came the return of the other two apprentices, whose clothes were no longer soaked with blood. Gilan decided to not ponder on that particular development, however, and instead picked at his food after it was placed in front of him and he was released from his bonds. Reluctantly and apathetically, he ate as the mysterious healer's warning echoed in his mind.

The apprentices seemed just as dazed as he was, so their meal was a rather silent affair. Beyond that, the guards were watching them closely to ensure they weren't going to try anything now that they were unbound, making any real conversation not an option anyway.

"Where's Will?" One of the apprentices, Runar, eventually dared asked. Gilan almost snapped the fork he was using in half at the question and that seemed to be enough a response for the apprentices, who both gained a sudden, intense interest in their food. He wasn't sure if he would've been able to explain anyway. Still, he saw the worry and fear in their eyes, and guilt eventually drove him to give them a better answer.

"Halt managed to escape." He explained hollowly. "And Morgarath wasn't too happy about it. I'm not sure what's going to... _happen_ to him or any of us though." It seemed as good of a response as he could think of to be able to safely say in front of their guards, and the apprentices nodded slowly in acceptance of the explanation as his words sank in.

"It'll be alright." Runner said, though with no confidence and only to himself.

"Speak for yourself." Henrik muttered grumpily. Gilan could tell that the apprentice was only trying to act as he normally would, yet that familiar response and behavior did seem to lift the mood amongst the three of them ever so slightly.

After they finished the rest of their food in more silence, their hands were once more bound behind their backs. The guards at least give them a bit more space, however, standing outside the tent instead of directly watching them like hawks. Gilan then tried to converse with the two apprentices, despite the continuous turmoil in his mind, but they were alarmingly reluctant to share what they'd gone through so far, particularly anything relating to whatever had happened to them with Morgarath in the woods after Will had separated from them.

Eventually, Gilan decided that they all probably needed some time to process and think about their own experiences, so he let silence fall between them as they all seemed to withdraw into their own thoughts.

For Gilan, as his shock had faded, a painful dread had begun to build inside him as his thoughts kept circling back to Will and his fear of what Morgarath was doing to him. The rest of the day passes slowly, but surely in this manner as his fears grew and his thoughts chased each other around in his mind, while his imagination conjured up increasingly horrific scenarios.

The two apprentices fared a bit better at least, as they had both eventually managed to fall into some much-needed sleep in the meantime.

It was around sunset when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching their tent again. Tensing up, Gilan straightened from his slouched posture and kicked the apprentices awake. Flashbacks to the last time a certain someone had stormed into this tent were threatening the edges of his mind as he fixed the half-asleep Henrik and Runar with a serious, warning gaze.

"Someone's coming." Was all he had time to say before the flaps to their tent flew open. Gilan was painfully relieved when he saw that it wasn't Morgarath.

Instead, the man with discolored eyes stepped in with a couple of soldiers. After a few nervous moments, Gilan also noticed the limp figure the two soldiers were dragging inside by the arms. It took another instant for him to recognize the shock of brown hair, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. The soldiers threw the limp body onto the ground before him like a sack of potatoes. He froze, frightened to look too closely in case he saw something he didn't want to see.

 _Will..._ _What did they do to you?_ Gilan wondered as he stared at the apprentice, hesitantly looking for any signs of blood or injuries. There didn't seem to be a scratch on him, though that somehow only made him more nervous. Then, he saw one of the boy's fingers twitch and he felt a pressure suddenly disappear from his chest. _He's alive._ Will was alive, but there was something wrong with him.

Gilan then notice how the man with discolored eyes was studying him and the apprentices with a critical eye. Eventually, he decided to kneel down in front before Gilan to look him straight in his eyes.

"You are far from home." He stated bluntly. "I'm sure you've noticed that by now, just by the trees alone. Nothing like these trees grows in Araluen." Gilan grimaced. That was true enough. "Therefore, you must also realize how useless an escape attempt will be. If you try to escape, make no mistake, you will die out here. You and all of your little friends. You've seen some of what we can do, so I hope for all of our sakes that you'll believe me when I say that we can and will kill any of you in an instant should we notice any of you trying to escape again. Do _not_ try it. Understood?" Gilan pursed his lips and hesitated for a second.

He didn't want to admit it and it scared him more than he'd like, but he knew that the man was right. At least for now, escape was an impossible and fatal course of action due to how weak they were and how little information they had on their environment.

"Understood." He responded quietly. Behind him, the two apprentices nodded slightly in agreement. The man with discolored eyes glowered at him for a moment, as if trying to discern what his thoughts were, though in all honesty, Gilan's brain was a currently muddled mess that even he himself could barely comprehend. Eventually, however, the man seemed satisfied with what he saw.

"Very well. Since we've come to this understanding, I'm going to allow all of you to be unbound since it'll make things easier for all of us. I'll warn you now, any violence or misbehavior will not be tolerated and if _any_ of you try anything, you'll _all_ be tied up for the rest of our little journey and you'll have a much worse time here. If you attack any of us, mark my words, you will certainly fail and there will be _consequences_. Is _that_ understood?"

Gilan nodded again resignedly. He was still too weak to fight anyway due to his earlier blood loss, and he suspected that the apprentices were in a similar boat. The man seemed content with his response and proceeded to call in a couple more guards to release them from their bonds.

"It'll be your responsibility now to take care of that one." The man said, pointing at Will as the guards moved to untie Gilan and the apprentices. "We have better things to do than play nursemaids for prisoners. He'll be out for a while and weak when he wakes up. I would just be thankful that he's still alive though. You're all lucky that Morgarath had been urgently called away earlier." Gilan was barely able to hold back a sigh of relief at that, before his eyes flickered to Will's prone form.

"Is he going to be okay?" He asked cautiously, in as neutral a voice as he could manage. The man with discolored eyes stood and began to turn away from him.

"He'll eventually recover." Before Gilan could ask what Will had to recover _from_ , the man then moved to leave the tent, saying as he left, "Remember, don't try anything. _Several_ guards will still be posted outside of your tent and you _will_ fail." Then, the man was gone and the soldiers and guards followed after him.

One of the last guards seemed purposefully hold up the tent flaps for a moment to allow Gilan and the apprentices a glimpse outside, which revealed the sight of many heavily armed and very- alert guards standing just outside their tent. It wasn't particularly subtle, but the warning was clear enough.

He waited for a moment after all the guards and soldiers left, stretching his strained arms and hands a bit, before he then moved towards Will. The apprentice was lying facedown on the dirt ground, still as a corpse.

 _He'll be fine._ Gilan repeated to himself harshly. _He's alive._ The Ranger then rolled the apprentice over and gathered the heavy, limp body in his arms as he inspected his friend a bit closer to try and figure out what had happened to him. He was relieved to find that the boy had no apparent injuries, but the more he looked, the more his relief twisted into painful worry. He noticed how abnormally shallow and slow Will's breathing was, how his cheeks were still wet from recent tears, how deathly pale he was, and how he seemed to have a rather notable fever. _What on earth had happened to him?_

"Is he okay?" The two apprentices had gathered next to him, staring at Will with wide, concerned eyes. Gilan shrugged tiredly, uncharacteristically unable to find any words to say.

"He's not dead and that guy _had_ said that he will recover." He sighed, trying to provide at least some reassurance. "That might be a the best that we could get for now." The apprentices didn't say anything more, but seemed to accept his words.

They then settled into a contemplative silence. After a while, Gilan noted that he couldn't bring himself to let go of Will at the moment, perhaps due to his lingering fear, and so he continued to hold the apprentice, allowing him to rest on his lap, which he thought had to be at least be better than the hard floor.

Night fell about an hour later. A guard had come in at some point to throw them a couple of thin blankets. After a few minutes, Gilan went over and considered the sheets of fabric as the temperature had steadily plummeted with the night. The blankets honestly felt as if they could rip almost as easily as paper, and he though they would be of little use, but it was all they had and so it would have to be enough. He handed one of the blankets to Henrik and Runar, who had huddled together by now to try and stay just a bit warmer.

"You're going to have to share." Gilan said apologetically. "It would be best for you guys to stay huddled together too. It seems that we're going to have a cold night ahead of us." The two apprentices protested slightly at this, not unlike spoiled children, before resigning themselves to their fate after a firm frown from Gilan. Somehow, their complaining over such a mundane issue made them all just a bit less tense though, and Gilan knew that was probably intentional. He also then reminded himself that all the apprentices here _were_ essentially still children, only in their third year at most. That thought only saddened him, however, and he quickly turned away from it.

Instead, he proceeded to focus his attention on Will, as he went over to sit next to where the apprentice still laid unconscious. Placing a gentle hand on his forehead, Gilan noted how his fever hadn't gone down a bit in the past hour. Frowning, he then placed the second blanket over the apprentice, though he thought it probably wasn't going to help much.

Exhausted as he was, Gilan decided to stay up just a bit longer, his mind still filled with too many thoughts and worries to really sleep. The worst of the danger they'd faced was over now and things were finally starting to settle down. Now, he had to figure out some sort of plan to help them get out before whatever else these people had in store for them. That alone was enough to keep him awake, though like they had earlier, his thoughts still kept circling back to Will for the most part.

He'd only seen the apprentice cry once before, a few months ago, under horrifying circumstances. He could only imagine what Morgarath had done to him to bring out those tears and he felt an unfamiliar, ugly wrath twisting inside him at that thought. Unsettled by this, however, he tried to push the anger away and think of other things, which was surprisingly easy as he found he had many of concerns too.

 _Healing Spells._ Due to whatever the mysterious healer had done to him earlier, he knew that the lack of any apparent injuries on Will now didn't mean that he hadn't been physically harmed in some way before. And beyond whatever was causing all these weird, impossible things that had happened to him, Gilan was also concerned about the words of the man with the discolored eyes.

 _He'll eventually recover._ Gilan distantly recalled the strange wooden block that had been shoved in his face just before he'd blacked out during his own interrogation. He remembered the _awful_ feeling of something digging into his head, a foreign presence in his mind. As much as it pained him to acknowledge it, he knew that all the signs were pointing to Morgarath having messed with Will's head somehow.

Absently, his hand went to the apprentice's forehead again at the this thought, and he brushed through his hair gently as a comforting gesture for both Will and himself. He knew it wasn't anybody's fault but Morgarath's, but he couldn't help but feel guilty for how helpless he had been against Morgarath, how he'd done nothing when Will had been dragged away in the first place, and how all of this had started when he'd sent the apprentices off on their search just the night before... _The night before._

That felt like forever ago.

Suddenly, he didn't feel like dwelling on everything anymore. He was bone-tired and there wasn't any immediate threat at the moment. For now, he at least had most of the apprentices from yesterday with him, all mostly alive and well. There was a dim, gentle light from a fire filtering into their tent from the outside, and if he ignored the silhouettes of the enormous amount of guards outside, it was almost comforting. Unwell as he was, Will's face seemed at peace and relaxed at the moment, and Gilan could hear the even, heavy breathing of the other two apprentices who'd fallen asleep by now. It was a nice moment. Perhaps one of the few nice moments he would be able to enjoy in the near future.

Knowing this, Gilan laid down as well, settling under the thin blanket as he gently placed an arm over Will to try and shield him from the cold night just a bit more. Instinctively, the apprentice curled up closer to the meager amount of warmth his friend could provide him and Gilan truly smiled for the first time that day, still almost unbearably relieved that the apprentice was still alive and with him. They were all in serious trouble, but he was determined to preserve the preciously fragile peace of this moment for as long as he could. If that meant ignoring the countless worries and problems they were facing, then so be it.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you to any reader who's still around and managed to get to the end of this long, _long_ chapter. The biggest reason why this took so long (beyond just procrastination) was because I was really struggling with writing Gilan and I hadn't expected to write from his perspective quite this much in the first place. We don't really see much of him dealing with panic and how he deals with stress and loss, so I wasn't sure how to go about it. I'm still not sure how I did, but I told myself, as I often have to, that I have to stop and move on eventually, so this is what we ended up with. **

**Like with everything else, I'll eventually go back and edit it, maybe earlier if there's any major issue. I also generally don't consider myself very good at writing emotions, so I would love any feedback/constructive criticism on that. Looking back on this story, I also notice how there haven't been any downtime/relaxing of tension in the most recent chapters, so I really wanted to bring things back down a bit by the end of this chapter, which I think I managed to kind of do (?). As always, a big thanks to everyone who's reading, following, and/or favoriting. An extra big thanks to everyone who has reviewed!:**

 **MagicalMysteryPhantom, S3riana, Zeetah, Gerbilfriend, allie300093, stiltsrosko, Ranger River**

 **All of your feedback and encouraging words really made my day and encouraged me even more to continue writing this story! I didn't notice any big questions from last chapter, but as always, feel welcome to ask any that you have in a review. Also, as an unrelated side note, I've noticed that these chapters only seem to be getting longer and longer, which is strange and maybe a bit concerning. I now have no idea how long this story will take to write or how long it will be word count wise, but we'll just have to wait and see how that turns out I guess. Also, similar to last chapter, I had to chop off a bit of the material I'd originally wanted to squeeze into this chapter, but its not too extreme this time. For the next update, I'm aiming to get it up in either a week or two, but maybe a bit longer depending on how long the chapter ends up being. But it'll most likely be around two weeks :p**

 **Next chapter... Horace finally makes an appearance and is on a trip out of** **Redmont, Halt wakes up again, a bit more coherent this time around, and Gilan continues to struggle taking care of three apprentices while still trying to figure out what happened to Will. Until next time (which will hopefully be soon), I, EndlessStars, bid you farewell!**


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